World: Pilot Iinuma's Lesson

At 3:30 one hazy afternoon in 1937 a low-wing monoplane dropped on Croydon Aerodrome, London, in a landing which Aeroplane described as "the bounceless plop of a mashed potato." The plane had the flag of the Rising Sun painted on its white flank; it was named The Divine Wind. Its pilot, a 24-year-old wizard of endurance named Masaaki Iinuma, had just flown all the way from Tokyo (via Formosa, Indo-China, India, Iraq, Greece, Italy, France) in four days. Aeroplane, remarking that the crowd of greeters at the field nearly trampled underfoot half a dozen very small Japanese girls and their bouquets,...

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