Two in a Plane

Summertime is headache time for the parents of many a U. S. moppet. Small fry with no lawn to mow nor soda-pop stand to keep them busy find time sticky on their hands. At Massapequa Park, L. L, swarthy, stocky Bernard Byrne, 15, and sandy-haired, stringbeany Donald Blood, 14, bored with summer idleness, decided to join the Canadian Royal Air Force, help fight the Battle of Britain. On Sunday they marshaled their cash reserve--$1.25, which Don urged out of a toy bank at home--and set out for Canada. They didn't intend either to walk or hitchhike.

While an eight-State police alarm was spread to find them, Benny and Don hid by night in an abandoned ski shack, for two days scoured the airports of Long Island for an unguarded plane. Just before dawn Wednesday morning they spotted a small red-orange cabin monoplane standing in front of a hangar at the Nassau Airport.

With Benny confidently at the controls they swooped safely off the ground, headed across Long Island Sound. Don unearthed a map and compass, charted a course for Canada. Then he found an old newspaper, in which he read that private planes were forbidden to cross the Canadian border. All right, then, they would go somewhere else. Benny turned the plane toward Florida and a career as a "crop duster," a few minutes later noticed the gas tank going dry.

Down they went for a perfect landing in a cow pasture. Their last 75-c- bought four gallons of gas at a nearby filling station. But Benny lost his beginner's luck on the second takeoff, bounded from a knoll into a clump of apple trees, pancaked back to earth, shattered the propeller, mangled the landing gear.

Half an hour later, Peekskill police found the two wide-eyed, frightened fliers washing in a lake. At headquarters they cleared up a five-day-old mystery. Police had never understood why a Curtiss Junior had been found damaged at Fitzmaurice Field one morning. During the evening Benny and Don had taken it up for a trial flight and brought it back none the worse except for a slightly damaged undercarriage.

Growled angry Parent Elmer Blood, thinking of the long months before school starts: "I'd like to see my boy work it off at the airport. I'd like to see him get every bit of the dirty work there until he's worked out enough to pay for the damage." Angry Parent Bernard Byrne mumbled a threat of spanking. A generous judge in the Nassau County Children's Court ordered Benny into a correctional institution, held Don for further consideration.

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