Towhead's Ambition

Something about the gangling, towheaded kid impressed Wiley Post that day in 1933. It was in Tulsa, and the one-eyed veteran pilot was riding high on the fame of his solo flight around the world in the famed Winnie Mae in 186 hours and 49 minutes. Flyer Post gave the kid a piece of the Winnie Mae's fabric, and even autograptfed it for him. Said young Bill Odom brashly: "I'm gonna fly around the world myself some day."

Last week, twelve years after Wiley Post had crashed to his death with Will Rogers in Alaska, Bill Odom, now a lean, balding 27, made good. Alone in Penmaker Milton Reynold's Bombshell, he circled the globe between Thursday and Sunday.

He took off in the converted Douglas A26 bomber from Chicago's Douglas Airport at 12:53 p.m. E.S.T. Thursday. With him was that piece of Winnie Mae's fabric. Soon he was in rough weather.

Blue Fire. At Gander (1,750 miles) he had to land with the help of G.C.A. At Paris (4,370 miles), the enthusiastic French pinned on him a medal for "physical endurance." At Karachi (8,745 miles), he found that "the clouds were in the palm trees," lost precious time working a radio letdown procedure. Customs officials pestered him. "They wanted me to sign a thousand papers. I was taxiing out, and the customs man ran after me. I just tossed him a fountain pen."

From Karachi to Calcutta, he flew through blinding rain and cloud. Over the Hump, which he had flown 102 times during World War II for the Chinese National Aviation Corp., the plane bounced and tossed. Blue St. Elmo's fire glowed eerily from propellers and wing tips. His automatic pilot went out. For the rest of the way, he had to fly by manual control.

At Tokyo (13,345 miles), Odom snatched a few minutes' sleep on one of the Bombshell's wings. At Anchorage (16,745 miles), a mechanic caught him napping, standing up. There he pinned his cherished piece of Winnie Mae's covering to a wreath and left it as a memorial to his boyhood hero, Wiley Post.

White Death. Sleep leaned on his eyelids, pressed down on his brain like a weight. Flying southeastward over the Canadian Rockies, he fell asleep. When he awoke an hour and 40 minutes later, he was flying almost due north. All around him, white-fanged peaks glinted in the moonlight. "I looked up and I was headed for a huge cloud. No, I thought, that's not a cloud." It was the top of Mount Logan, 19,850 feet high. "I just pulled back on the wheel and spiraled right up ... before I straightened out for home."

Odom got home at 1:58 p.m. Sunday. He had flown 19,645 miles (4,049 miles farther than Post) in 73 hours 5 minutes (113 hours, 44 minutes less than Post). His time was also five hours 50 minutes faster than the previous round-the-world speed record, which he had set in April in the same plane, over virtually the same course, accompanied by a flight engineer and Penmaker Reynolds.

Pilot Odom looked fine. Said he: "The good Lord was taking care of me last night. That business scared me so much I haven't felt sleepy since."

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