| Summary: | Alaskan Flyers Delayed By Snow: Wilkins Waiting Better Weather Before Return Hop From Barrow To Fairbanks./Early Return Expected./Repairs To Damaged Triple-Motored Plane Hurried Along And Days Will Be Saved. ALASKAN FLYERS DELAYED BY SNOW Wilkins Waiting Better Weather Before Return Hop From Barrow to Fairbanks. EARLY RETURN EXPECTED. Repair to Damaged Triple-Motored Plane Hurried Along and Days Will Be Saved. By Frederic Lewis Earp. Special Correspondent of The Spokesman-Review and with the Detroit Arctic Expedition. Fairbanks, April 3. --Captain George Wilkins and his Fokker monoplane were still at Point Barrow this morning, awaiting favorable weather for the return flight to Fairbanks, Major Thomas G. Lanphier, second in command of the Detroit arctic expedition flying party, announced today. The day broke clear and colder here and Major Lanphier expected the early return of the plane over the 560 miles of snow covered tundra and mountain. Radioman Howard Mason, at the hangar here, had Captain Wilkins on the air last night for eight minutes, but got no report on the weather on the arctic coast. However, Robert Waskey, operator with the expeditions' overland party on the Anaktuvuk river, about midway between here and Barrow and north of the Endicott mountains, reported it was snowing there, with no wind and with the temperature 8 above. It is believed the same conditions may prevail at Barrow. The weather here this forenoon was almost ideal for flying. Not a breath of wind was stirring. Possibility that the damaged Detroiter, the alrger of the expedition's two monoplanes, may take the air early next week was expressed today by Major Lanphier. He is having the smashed landing gear and part of the fuselage rebuilt at a local machine shop and may not have to await the arrival of spare parts, on the way here from New York and due next week. This is expected to speed by several days the plans of the expedition. E. E. Bennett, Fairbanks commercial aviator, arrived at 1:20 this afternoon from Wiseman in his biplane, making the trip in about three and one-half hours. Wiseman lies nearly half way to Point Barrow, where Captain George Hubert Wilkins, in his single-engined Fokker monoplane, arrived from Fairbanks last Wednesday. No further radio message had been received by the members of the Detroit arctic expedition here from Captain Wilkins this afternoon and it was not considered likely he will return today. The weather at Wiseman was clear and cold when Bennett left.
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