PREPARING FOR THE ROCKFORD FLYERS 



of laying out another which would be 2500 feet 

 in length, but this would require removing scat- 

 tered boulders, many of them quite large, and for 

 this task a gang of men would be required. 



Baer had found the radio equipment left at the 

 station to be heavily coated with soot and quite out 

 of commission. It was therefore, necessary to 

 take everything to pieces and carefully clean the 

 ■parts. Even after this had been done he was 

 generally unable to get contact with the United 

 States during the summer, but on one of the more 

 favorable occasions he did succeed in sending out 

 through the New York Times station a report by 

 Etes for Hassell with reference to the landing 

 field which we had found. Although Hassell had 

 originally intended to take-off for Mount Evans 

 with a sufficient gasoline supply to reach Stock- 

 holm, he had considered Iceland as an alternative 

 stopping place. Convinced that our runway of 

 something more than a quarter of a mile in length 

 would be too short for the take-off with 400 gal- 

 lons of gasoline, the amount necessary to reach 

 Stockholm, Etes decided to outline in his report 

 the length and character of the field without any 

 verdict as to its adequacy. While awaiting the 

 reply to this message we transferred the gasoline 

 to the Dory Camp, but we considered it wise to 



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