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[[image - photo of 18th century balloon.
[[caption: The Montgolfier balloon (1783) with its strange cargo]]

[[news clipping]]
MY INITIAL flight was aboard the Clipper that inaugurated the mail route between North and South America in 1931, with Colonel Charles Lindbergh as pilot. That American Clipper was the last word in size and comfort. It had roomy aisles, a smoking-room. Delicious cold picnic lunches with hot coffee were served. We slept on land. The ship cruised at about one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, usually at one thousand feet altitude. Our setting foot upon the soil of Barranquilla in Colombia, South America, Colonel Lindbergh's stirring speech on friendship between the two continents - these things we felt were fraught with historical significance. Returning, we landed in the stormy darkness at Miami, Florida, after making the first through passenger flight from South to North America in one day.

Sleeping in the air is now an old story but my first experience in sleeping in one of the great new luxury liners was crossing the Atlantic on the Dixie Clipper on the first passenger flight to Europe, June 28, 1939, and it was marvelous. The aisle of the Dixie and her sister Clippers is eighty feet long. Amidship there is a spacious high-ceilinged smoking lounge with fourteen deep built-in chairs. Tables for meals, cars or writing are put up whenever they are needed. there are two compartments fore and aft of the smoking lounge with places for ten people each. Toward the bow are the galley and the men's dressing-room (even equipped with an outlet for an electric razor), the crew's lounge and the stairs to the control-room. Towards the stern are the berths either side of the aisle, the coat room, the ladies' dressing-room and the bridal suite. The comfortable berths are in upper and lower tiers like a Pullman. Each one has a window, a light and a ventilator. They may be left made up during the day so that one can retire for a siesta or to read quietly. The dressing-room is bright with chromium and mirrors. The bridal suite which occupies the stern has a comfortable lounge which makes up into two berths; it has also a washbasin and a lavatory. The chromium galley where the delicious hot meals are prepared would prove fascinating to any housewife. We had soups, chicken Maryland, filet mignon, chops, fresh asparagus hollandaise, other fresh vegetables, salads, ices and even strawberry shortcake. Breakfast proved a hard meal to prepare because water takes a long time to boil at such a high altitude, consequently coffee and boiled eggs have to be started before leaving the ground. Specialties of the countries we visited wee put aboard for our enjoyment. At the Azores we were given the delicious white wine of the country; in Lisbon, little fish as appetizers; in Shediac, New Brunswick, wonderful fresh lobsters. Meals were something to look forward to.

THIS initial flight to Europe was different from any other because we lost visual contact with land and sea for so many hours at a time. I have flown at much height altitude when flying over mountains, but the distance between plane and land was only a few thousand feet; whereas crossing the Atlantic we were seven to ten thousand feet above the water. After we left Long Island vast clouds like snow rolled under us, obliterating the ocean, so that we never saw the sea until early the next morning, approaching the Azores. The reflection of the brilliant sunshine on the clouds was dazzling.

Skyscrapers are stirring and exciting. Sometimes impressive architectural clouds build giant palaces. At other times airy little clouds reflect the moon or the tints of the sun. Floating fast in the opposite direction they give the sensation of great speed. Sometimes I felt as if I were in a world back of the north wind, consorting only with the elements.

During the quiet hours of the night the ship p lunged into a massive gray cloud. In the darkness it created the feeling of complete isolation. We seemed to have slipped beyond the confines of reality and become a small world of our own rushing alone toward an unknown destination in the heavens. Then the ship bumped into a little storm and out again and the full glory of the night sky burst upon us. We were sailing beside the full moon and the stars, with Venus acting as guide. The mist dissolved into a sea of ethereal clouds fading in and out of one another in the moonlight.

Flying home over the North Atlantic from Ireland to Newfoundland the Clipper went blind through fog and bucked head winds all night. In spite of this I did not feel completely isolated for when we slid gently from daylight into the gray, people were laughing and talking and I knew that the navigating was done by instrument whether there was visibility or not, and that we were in constant radio communications with land. Still after everyone had retired the only living thing seemed to be the heartbeats of the motors.

[[image - photo of the Clipper docked]]

[[image - photo of people on shore waiting for the Clipper to dock]]

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