Busman's Holiday

Like a Greyhound bus driver who admires sports cars, United Airlines Captain Marion ("Pat") Boling, 43, cherished a quiet dream. In 1949 four-engine Pilot Boling watched the late Bill Odom lift a small Beechcraft Bonanza off a Honolulu airport on a nonstop flight that ended 4,957 miles away in New Jersey. Eying the light plane's performance, Boling resolved some day to better the mark. Last week he did. Flying an orange Bonanza from Manila, Pat Boling took a broad arc over the Pacific, finally came in for a landing in Pendleton, Ore. after flying alone for 6,890 miles and 46 hours.

Boling planned the flight for nine months, spent part of his time checking charts and part learning to stay awake 48 hours at a stretch. His 250-h.p. plane was fitted with auxiliary wingtip tanks to provide an extra 124 gal. of gas (he consumed all but eleven), and with a special horn. Horn's function: to blow every hour, prevent his falling asleep too long. Boling left a parachute behind to save 25 Ibs.. stocked up on canned pears, apricot nectar and Fig Newtons. Special baggage: the white Bible his wife Joyce, a Seventh-day Adventist, carried on their wedding day. Over the lonely Pacific, Boling. son of a Baptist minister, put the plane on automatic pilot, thumbed his favorite Proverbs, e.g., "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."

Flying at 6,000 ft., averaging 152 m.p.h., Boling swung routinely above Okinawa and Japan, jumped the ocean to the Aleutians. There he ran into his only trouble. When the wingtip tanks unaccountably began to lose fuel, and the engine coughed in the cold, Boling began running over his ditching check list. Then he decided to stay with the plane. He dropped to 1,500 ft.; when the engine purred again, he flew confidently on. Approaching the Pendleton airport he radioed a single request: permission to land without circling because gas was low.

Met by Joyce, a onetime airline hostess, and son Kevin, 9, Boling soon was soaking in a hot bath, relaxing under an alcohol rubdown, then slipped gratefully into bed. He was $3,140 richer for the flight ($1,000 of the money pledged to the Seventh-day Adventists) because properly proud Beech Aircraft had guaranteed $1,000 for his reaching Seattle and $10 for every mile beyond. But for Pat Boling there was a greater satisfaction. Said he: "Those were the best hours of my life. Everyone likes to see his plans come true."

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