Flights & Flyers

'Giro Over Mexico. Down upon a terrace of the famed Chichen-Itza ruins in Yucatan, where the Carnegie Foundation has an outpost, plumped an autogiro piloted by Capt. Lewis A. ("Lon") Yancey. In less than two hours he had windmilled over the mountains from Merida, a journey which takes most of a day by narrow-gauge rail and wagon. Having flown the first 'giro to Cuba and thence to Mexico, Pilot Yancey visited Mexico City before heading for the U. S. Pacific Coast.

Beer Preferred. Soon after the airplane St. Didier passed the North African coast in an attempted speed flight from France to Madagascar its wireless called for help. Forced down somewhere in the vast Sahara, the flyers. Jean Reginensi, Robert Lenier, Joseph Touge, were unhurt but thirsty. Rescue planes began hunting, but the stranded flyers could not state their location. For three days the crew continued to flash piteous accounts of their increasing thirst. In return they received messages of love from their families, advice to burn their oil and even their plane as a signal to searchers. On the third day the radio failed, its last message expressing thanks for the efficient communications but adding: "We had rather have a barrel of beer." On the sixth day the men were found alive, about 200 mi. south of In Salah, in the heart of the desert.

Again Christofersen. Exactly 20 years ago the late Silas Christofersen, early dare-devil flyer of the West, flew a flimsy home-made plane off the roof of Portland, Ore.'s Multonomah Hotel. Last week his widow left Seattle to salvage by plane a fur ship abandoned off Point Barrow, Alaska.

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