To put “pursuit tactics to the acid test under extremely rigorous weather conditions, and to afford a very broad opportunity for testing flying equipment in zero temperatures” the ist Pursuit Group of the Army Air Corps long planned a frigid flight from Mt. Clemens, Mich., to Spokane, Wash., and back. The planes, 18 pursuit and four transports (one carrying short wave radio apparatus), equipped with skis and other pertinent paraphernalia for operation under extreme cold and bad weather, were ready to fly last week. A first delay came when the planes were plated with ice after an all night storm. Then one of the transport planes crunched through the ice on Lake St. Clair in five feet of water, had to be hauled ashore and dried off. Eighteen flyers completed the first lap of their journey, landing at Duluth. Minn. They dined with the mayor, city officials and the Chamber of Commerce. The four transports were at various stages of the first lap. One was forced back. The bedraggled radio plane got as far as St. Ignace. Mich.; two more got to Munising. Next day they straggled through snow storms to Minot, N. Dak., then to Great Falls, Mont. From Spokane, their terminal, they received bleak news. Weather there had inopportunely moderated. The ski-shod planes needed snow or thick ice for landing. Spokane had neither, temporarily, last week. Major Ralph Royce, leader of the patrol, declared the flight probably the most difficult and hazardous undertaken by a peacetime Army squadron.
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