LITMIR.BIZ

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would have been the result. But now her snapping gray eyes sparkled with exhilaration; she no longer needed the horizon as a guide. Between leveling off every thousand feet or so, to keep the engine from overheating, she shot Will-o’-the-Wisp up to six thousand, maintaining the proper angle of climb by the “feel” of the plane alone.

      With her altimeter indicating the height she wanted, she leveled off again; then, executing a sharp reverse control or “flipper” turn to the left she resumed straight flight again by the application of up aileron and opposite rudder. The plane was now headed south, several points to the west of the Beach Club.

      The visibility was even poorer than at a lower level, but the young pilot knew this part of the country as she knew her own front lawn. Either dropping or swerving her plane’s nose at frequent intervals so as to get an unimpeded view ahead, she passed over the wooded ridges toward the shore, over the city of Stamford and out over the slate grey waters of Long Island Sound.

      That body of water is some six or eight miles wide at this point, and upon reaching the opposite shore, Dorothy commenced a patrol of the Long Island shore line from Lloyds’ Neck, which lies just west of Oyster Bay, to the farther side of Smithtown Bay, a distance of fifteen or sixteen miles. And as she flew, she kept a sharp lookout for planes appearing out of the murk toward the Connecticut shore.

      Since she knew it was the bearded aviator’s practice to fly at a comparatively low altitude, Dorothy chose to keep Will-o’-the-Wisp at this greater height for two reasons. An airplane flying far above another plane is much more unlikely to be noticed by the pilot of the lower plane than one flying at his own level or below him. Then again, by keeping to the higher air, Dorothy, under normal weather conditions, was bound to increase her range of vision proportionately. Her plan was a good one. But weather is not a respecter of plans. The visibility, poor enough when she started, gradually grew worse and worse. Although what wind there was seemed to have died, long curling tongues of mist crept out of the east, while above her head she saw black thunder clouds, sinking lower and lower.

      Now one of the first things any aviator learns is that fog must be avoided at all costs. Any attempt to land in it is attended by considerable danger. Dorothy knew only too well that in case of a fog bank cutting the plane off from its destination, the flight must be discontinued by a landing, or by return to the point of departure.

      She glanced overside again. Long Island Sound was no longer visible.

      “He’s late now, unless I’ve missed him,” she said to herself. “I’ll finish this leg of the patrol and if he doesn’t show up by the time I’m over Oyster Bay, Willie and I will head for home.”

      Pushing her stick slightly forward to decrease her altitude, she continued along her course.

      Three minutes later, she realized her mistake. The wisps of fog seemed to gather together, and Will-o’-the-Wisp sank into an opaque bank that blinded her.

      “Gee, but I’m stupid!” she mumbled. “What was it that text-book I read only yesterday said? ‘In the event of general formation of fog below, an immediate landing must be made before it becomes thick enough to interfere seriously with the approach.’ Heavens, what a fool I am! Now that we’re in it, though, I might as well see if it thins out nearer the water.”

      Her compass told her she was flying almost due west. Throttling down the engine, she pushed her stick still farther forward, at the same time applying right aileron and hard right rudder. As the proper gliding angle was reached, she neutralized her elevators and held the nose up as necessary. Next, she checked her wing with the ailerons and eased her rudder pressure. Then having made a quarter-spiral with a change in course of 90 degrees, she applied left aileron and hard left rudder until the wings were level laterally, and with her stick still held forward, continued to descend in a straight glide until she was within fifteen hundred feet of the water. The plane was heading directly back across Long Island Sound toward the Connecticut shore.

      But each moment the fog seemed to grow more dense. To land blindly meant a certain nose-in and was out of the question. And even if the mist did not hold to the water’s level, to fly lower meant the chance of striking the mast or spar of a ship, a lighthouse, perhaps, or anything else that came her way.

      “We’re up against it, Wispy,” she murmured, opening the throttle and pulling back her stick. “If we can’t go down, at least we can ‘go above,’ as they say in the Navy. Beat it for the heavens, my dear. This beastly fog can’t run all the way to Mars!”

      Dorothy was not frightened, although she knew how serious was her predicament. No pilot likes flying blind in a fog. With the knowledge that what one sees, one hits, it is a nerve-wracking experience.

      But Dorothy’s nerves were good – none better – and she sent her plane into a long, steady climb, hoping for the best and keeping her vivid imagination well within control.

      Headed into the north, she continued her climb, leveling off every few thousand feet to ease the strain on her engine. When the altimeter marked thirteen thousand she began to worry, for the service ceiling of her plane was but two thousand higher. The cold damp of the thick mist penetrated like a knife. Hemmed in by the dank grey walls, she could barely distinguish the nose of her ship. The active needles of the altimeter and rate of climb indicator were the only visible signs that Will-o’-the-Wisp was moving at all.

      Fourteen thousand feet – intense physical discomfort, added to the nervous strain, were becoming intolerable. Dorothy clenched her chattering teeth in an effort to retain her control. Then with a suddenness astonishing, the fog parted and she sailed into clear air.

      Below her the heavy mist swirled and rolled like a sluggish sea, grey-yellow streaked with dirty streamers, while directly ahead loomed a towering mass of cotton-like clouds rising tier upon tier as far as she would see.

      A quick glance over her shoulder and to the sides, brought forth the fact that this small pocket of free air was entirely surrounded by similar cloud formations. There was no time for thought. Automatically, her hand clasping the stick shot forward, bringing down the nose to the position of level flight, and she drove the amphibian straight at the thunderhead. Immediately afterward the plane passed into the cloud, and like a leaf caught in an inverted maelstrom, it was whipped out of her control.

      Gripped by tremendous air forces, the amphibian was shot up and sideways, at a speed that burned Dorothy’s lungs. Tossed about like a rag doll, with her safety-belt almost cutting her body in two, she was thrown hither and yon with the plane, blind, and without the slightest idea as to her position.

      Never in her wildest nightmares had she dreamed that a heavy plane, weighing close to four thousand pounds when empty, could be tossed about in such fashion by currents of the air.

      For a space of time that seemed years, she was entirely away from the controls. But gradually, with infinite effort and in spite of the whirling jolts of her air steed, Dorothy managed to hook her heels under the seat. A second later she had caught the stick and was pushing it forward into the instrument board.

      Will-o’-the-Wisp reared like an outlawed bronco, then dived until the airspeed indicator showed one hundred and sixty-five miles per hour. Still her downward speed was less than the rate of the upward draft, for the rate of climb indicator told the frenzied girl that the plane was being lifted fourteen hundred feet per minute.

      Still diving at 45 degrees, the phenomenal force of the updraft carried the plane to the mushroom top of the cloud, where with a jar like an elevator hitting the ceiling, it was flung forth into the outer air.

       Chapter V

      HIDE AND SEEK

      The strong air current which spread horizontally over the thunderhead blew Dorothy’s plane sideways and away from the cloud. An instant later it was roaring downward in the thin air, quite beyond her control, a self-propelled projectile rushing to its doom.

      While shooting upward in the cloud, the violent and intensely rapid gyrations of the airship caused her safety belt to become unclasped, and had her parachute not caught in the cowling, she must have been flung clear of the plane to a horrible death far below.

      With

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