| Summary: | Big Arctic Plane Tries Her Wings: Tri-Motored Monoplane Makes Successful Flight With Army Officer As Pilot./No Word Of Wilkins./Expedition Expects Commander Back From Point Barrow At Any Time To Fairbanks. BIG ARCTIC PLANE TRIES HER WINGS Tri-Motored Monoplane Makes Successful Flight With Army Officer as Pilot. NO WORD OF WILKINS Expedition Expects Commander Back From Point Barrow At Any Time To Fairbanks. By Frederic Lewis Earp. Special Correspondent of The Spokesman-Review and the North American Newspaper Alliance with the Detroit Arctic Expedition. (Copyright, 1926.) FAIRBANKS, Alaska. April 17. -- The triple motored monoplane Detroiter of the Detroit arctic expedition took off this morning on a trial flight, with Major Thomas G. Lanphier, second in command of the expedition, as pilot. With him as mechanic was Charles M. Wiseley, former staff sergeant of the army service and chief mechanic with the party. The plane made an excellent start, leaving the ground before it had taxied a quarter of the distance from the 900-foot field. It was the first time the plane had been in the air since its landing gear was crashed in its first trial flight March 19. After remaining in the air 40 minutes the Detroiter landed and without stopping took off again for a final five-minute trial, returning to the airdrome. Several more flights are contemplated to make adjustments and correct the compasses, Major Lanphier said, before the Detroiter goes to Barrow for her actual thrust out over the un-penetrated polar sea. "I was at the controls when she cracked up last month," said the veteran army pilot, "and any fault of handing was mine. I have had the damaged parts reconstructed, the landing gear strengthened and certain motor faults corrected. I have flown her again and I find the plane satisfactory." After another night without word by radio from Captain George H. Wilkins and his pilot, Ben Eielson, who hopped off for Point Barrow Thursday morning, the member of the expedition here looked for his return today. This is the longest period the commander has been absent from the base here without a radio message being received from him, but expedition members see no cause for alarm. "$1,000,000 Job." Says Major. "She's a "$1,000,000 job," Major Lanphier shouted to me above the roar of his center motor as I climbed up the landing gear of the Detroiter this forenoon after the three-engined Fokker monoplane's successful trial flight over Fairbanks. "Did you see the way the old ship hopped into the air?" She'll go anywhere," he added, and his blue eyes twinkled. Former Staff Sergeant Charles M. Wiseley, sitting in the cockpit with the army commander of Selfridge field, unlimbered one of his rare grins and nodded affirmation. The big ship was in the air 42 minutes, climbing to 5000 feet and circling the town a dozen times or more. Then she swooped, climbed and dropped back to the field to test the rebuilt landing gear and bounced into the air again, the 600-horsepower of the three motors sending her aloft like a rubber ball. Five minutes later she ended the flight, alighting as gracefully as a gull on the sea. Fairbanks Doubles Size. Fairbanks, a town of 1200, has double its population within the last six weeks as men arrive on their way to the creeks for the summer, and the landing field was black with visitors who cheered the Detroiter and her crew. No message had been received this afternoon from Captain Wilkins. Captain Wilkins injured hand is believed to have prevented him from sending word by radio, and a storm which was brewing in the north yesterday probably delayed his return, Major Lanphier said.
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