[Illustration: Few important cities east of the Mississippi have missed seeing a Goodyear blimp by now, not to speak of those in the Southwest, the Pacific coast. Trips have been made also to Cuba, Canada and Mexico. More than 400,000 passengers have been carried, without even the scratch of a finger.]
SUMMARY TOTALS UP TO JANUARY 1, 1942 FLIGHTS 151,810 HOURS 92,966 PASSENGERS 405,526 MILES 4,183,470
FLIGHTS BETWEEN: AKRON - FLORIDA 49 " - DALLAS 6 " - CHICAGO 12 " - TORONTO 14 " - LAKEHURST 18 " - WASHINGTON 57 " - NEW YORK 42
Pilot Wilson flew to the spot, cut his motors, drifted down to 50 feet, directed the refugees to catch the trail ropes, then as the airship settled took them aboard, dropped sand bags to lighten ship, flew home--came back later with salvage parties to recover motors and other parts.
All these exploits were incidental to the job of learning about airships and airship weather--the tricks of winds and rain and storms. And they did learn. A hangar had been built in the woods at Grosse Ile, Detroit, with a lane of trees left standing so as to extend the line of the building--this under the assumption that the trees would protect the airships while entering or leaving. The British, under stress of war conditions had done this, used woods as windbreaks for landings, even for the assembly of airships at times.
But the wind has a trick of spilling over, like a waterfall, when it strikes an obstruction. Early pilots were expert balloonists, and might have remembered their experience in riding over mountainous country--observed how the wind would carry them almost into a cliff, but just before reaching it would pick the great bag gently up, carry it over the top, drop it on the far side, almost to the bottom of the next valley--but not quite, pick it up and carry on--a graphic chart of the air flow in broken terrain.
But in the first weeks of operation at Detroit, a cross-hangar wind, spilling over the windbreak, twice pushed an airship gently but firmly into the trees on the far side. The trees were cut down, and the study of eddies and gusts hastened the development of a mobile mooring mast which would hold the ship steady in turbulent areas.
The Goodyear pilots learned to fly unworried through fog. As early as 1920, Hockensmith, flying the "Pony Blimp" from Los Angeles to Catalina Island, got lost when his compass failed in a fog so dense he could hardly see the nose of the ship. Flying low and slowly, barely off the water, he presently spied a dark shape ahead, came on a U. S. submarine, with decks awash, and an officer on lookout in the conning tower. He landed on his pontoons, taxied alongside, borrowed a compass, went on to his destination.