Page:The Fun of It.pdf/114

92 Commerce suggests a uniform method of placing names near a railroad or close to a main highway for easy recognition. Large gas tanks are good places for signs, also. Once they are looked for in a definite location, they are more easily found from the air.

“My compass reads due west. I have been fly­ing for more than an hour. Speed 100 m.p.h. In half an hour, if the course is correct and I have al­lowed properly for winds, I ought to cross a river which is fifty miles from Bugville. Beyond that river is a railroad track. The first town which ap­pears to the left should be Prune City.”

Wonder what a pilot thinks about? Well, some­thing very much like that as he flies over unknown territory.

Crossing the continent I contrived to get myself lost, and not because of fog.

Flying west from Fort Worth I struck very bumpy weather. Air bumps act as do waves in a choppy sea, tossing one about. If severe, they make flying a small plane about like riding a couple of oceans in a canoe.

Through particularly bumpy going, while I tried to fly and also to pump gas from the reserve into the gravity tank, I lost my map. In that ship, it usually lay open upon my knee, fastened with a safety pin to my dress. But in the strenuous mo­ments over Texas, the pin was somehow loosened and the map blew away.

When I had a chance to look about, there were