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I had a wire from Bill Hamilton Saturday saying the test of #506 in the Buffalo passenger terminal would be today instead of Wednesday and I wired him I must be in Washington today but would try to get there Tuesday if it would still be running. So when I cleaned up in Washington today at noon, I saw a chance to fly to Buffalo in time to see the end of the test as well as confer with Bill there, and get home tonight to boot! I found I could get the 1 PM Eastern Airlines plane to New York and the 3.10 PM from there to Buffalo, arriving at the latter at 5.10. There was some doubt about the space from ^[[N.Y to]] Buffalo but I took a chance on that.

The flight to New York was routine - I miss the pretty stewardesses, as Eastern uses stewards and tries to make a point of them, the lord knows why when I would guess about 90% of the passengers would prefer the R.N's. With them (the girls) it is always like a pleasant lottery - you know they are bound to be pretty good - its just a question of [[underlined]] how [[/underlined]] good they ll be, and sometimes you hit the jade-pot like John and I did from Boston to Buffalo that memorable time. It was my first view of the autumn scene from the sky and it was lovely the checkered landscape, splashed with color stretching away across Jersey to the sea - purple, green, scarlet, straw of the varied forests and fields and roads. We ran through some clouds and murk over Philadelphia but came out into clear skies as we approached New York, soared over the blue harbor, skirted along the south shore of Staten Island, swooped down bumpily over the fast setting World's Fair and landed at La Guardia so smoothely it was [[underlined]] just [[/underlined]] possible to tell when the wheels touched the runway. The big Douglas DC-3 of the "Silver Fleet" had done us well to say nothing of the pilots when