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The Ds's flight last week was an unusually tough one. Captain Warren Harris, chief instructor, announced that it would start from Norway, fly to Greenland, then fly near the North Pole to drop supplies for an aircraft downed on the arctic ice. This was to be done in daylight and at a time of year when the sun is always showing in the polar sky. Navigators much prefer the night when the stars are visible. A "three-star fix" tells them much more about their position than the sun alone can do.
To make the job even harder. Captain Harris kept throwing unscheduled troubles at the students. He changed the wind, the air temperature, the air speed of their airplane. All went fairly well until the flight was near the North Pole. Then all the skilled navigators got thoroughly lost. Investigation showed that the machine had not been set to make the wind have the proper effect on the motion of the airplane. The experienced navigators had compensated for the wind; the inexperienced machine had not. Result: the plane had blown far off its course. Such kinks will be eliminated, says Captain Harris, by the time the regular student-navigators try their simulated wings over the North Pole.