I saw this in the Honolulu Airport not long ago. Glad I spent a minute to read and learn about a pretty crazy chapter in Pacific aviation. In a nutshell, these guys missed Oahu and ran out of fuel because of bum navigational info, ditched in the mid-pacific, ripped up their wing canvas to make sails, improvised a water rudder and a sea anchor, and sailed their plane backwards, reaching Kauai on the afternoon of their ninth day at sea. All that after 25 hours non-stop powered flight from California.

-DP

Was on the north shore working on my tan and picking up some 2-32 stick time at the Dillingham airport last month.
Was wondering if anyone knew if there was any relationship to the Dillingham up here in Western Alaska.

Rocket

Hank Rust a well known aviator in Alaska (Rust Flying service) told us stories of flying B-25's from CA to Hawaii during WW2. It was all dead reconnecting back in the day. He said they varied altitude from 12,000 to 200 depending on wx. Hours of boredom ...He said it was a sweet feeling when they heard the Hawaiian music on the ADF and homed in to Hawaii low on fuel. Can't recall how many were in the flight but he said half missed the islands and never heard from again

In 1931 Clyde Pangborn & Hugh Herndon flew the MIss Vedol (a 1931 Bellanca ) from Japan to the mainland US. They were shooting for Seattle, but when it was fogged in they went on to cross the Cascades & landed in Wenatchee. Since they had jettisoned the landing gear after takeoff it was a pretty rough landing. I don't know where Pangborn hailed from, but the airport in Wenatchee is named after him. About 10 years ago, there was a replica of Miss Vedol built, a few people I know in the pacific northwest were involved with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Veedol