Again, Doolittle

Up into the early morning darkness over Ottawa's Rockcliffe Airdrome one day last week shot "Jimmy" Doolittle's Laird racer, the one in which he crossed the U. S. in 11 hr. 16 min. 10 sec. last month (TIME, Sept. 14). In the cockpit Major Doolittle had a copy of that morning's Ottawa Citizen. That afternoon he handed the paper to a newsman on Mexico City's Valbuena Airfield, 12 hr. 36 min. after leaving Ottawa. He gave himself up to a reception committee, spurned proffered tea and asked for three fingers of brandy, declared he was not very tired but "pretty well gassed" by carbon monoxide.

Publicity-wise Major Doolittle had made his first stop at Washington so the flight could be the first to link all three North American capitals in a single day. That visit cost him 40 min. flying time while he hunted in vain for fog-bound Bolling Field, finally put down on Washington-Hoover Airport. He stopped for fuel twice again, at Birmingham and Corpus Christi, Tex. The whole day's 2,500-mi. flight he described as "uninteresting" save for the thrill of landing his high speed plane in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico City.

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