A MAN, A PLANE, AND A DREAM

increasingly complex world there are major achievements usually result from the combined efforts of thousands of people one man has shown that individual accomplishment is still possible that impossible dreams can come true if we wish to accomplish and to push frontiers if we wish to seek in the outer fringes maybe we do have to risk a little bit this is an individual thing this is what each man calculates to himself I have received training I have received skills that I should utilize to my fullest extent as an individual man my effort isn't a lot it's a grain of sand on the beach if you will but I must do my thing to the best of my ability and I feel almost compelled to do it for those reasons it's very personal elgyn lon a 25000 our dc-8 captain with Flying Tiger green for over 20 years of being the first person to fly solo around over both poles captain Long's dream became a reality is 28-day 36,000 miles self-financed flight touchdown on all seven continents said three world's records and earned him the gold Air Medal awarded only to a few select aviation heroes including james Doolittle Igor Sikorsky and Charles Lindbergh Elgin Long's courage ability and determination contribute to the legends of an industry and a nation and prove that there is no such thing as an impossible dream [Music] airline captain Elgin long is today at the crossroads of his life for 23 years he has been telling his wife Marie about his dream to be the first pilot to fly solo around the world via the North and South Poles Long's dream comes to life at 2:00 p.m. on runway two eight of San Francisco International Airport as he heads for all seven continents and the first solo flight across Antarctica long will be reporting back to San Francisco by a special telephone hook-up in flight over the North Pole and Timbuktu and the other exotic parts of the world he'll see from the window of his Piper Navajo as he lives a 23 year old dream he calls crossroads endeavour this is Dave Mackel hatton ke CBS news radio well after talking about it for 23 years at least over 20 years I found myself of my own personal crossroads my wife and family been listening to me year by year talk about it and I had to either do it or quit talking about it at the time seemed right everything was right for me to do it now not only was it the crossroads of my life let me show you on the globe by crossing the North in the South Pole all the meridians converge at that point so that's a crossroads of geography by crossing the equator over here at the Prime Meridian and the equator at the International Dateline and opposite points in the earth I was crossing the crossroads of time so the fight really was truly a crossroads flight once I'd committed myself to the flight the first thing I had to do was select an airplane so I set out to find the best airplane that was in my budget something I could afford and I laid out what the airplane had to do for me was pretty formidable I had to select an airplane that had a reliability it had the range it had the all-weather capability could imagine to do the flight I'm going to fly over the North Pole during the Arctic night this means temperatures 30 40 below zero I'm going to fly across the Sahara Desert with temperatures to 110 but above all the whole flight of over 36,000 miles and over 200 hours meant reliability mechanical reliability integrity and this I found everybody that the air checked with the Babel Hall is the airplane so I selected the turbo Navajo to be my machine crossroads endeavor is the culmination of years of planning and preparation of studying charts and plotting routes of getting visas and diplomatic clearances of thorough professional analysis and evaluation of every possible contingency inside the Piper Navajo for large fuel tanks have been installed increasing its capacity to 623 gallons it's range to 4,000 miles from flying tiger long obtained a polar compass and Elko supplied and installed it's carousel inertial navigation system a navigational computer developed for the Apollo moon flights the $100,000 eye NS will guide captain long unerring Li to the for crossroads of the world the crossroads of his dream all of the necessary arrangements have been completed all of the complicated equipment has been installed and tested critical spare parts have been purchased and packed although it turned out not one spare part was needed during the entire flight finally to keep awake long includes a two dollar and ninety eight center arm clock as friends present the captain with a good-luck piece of one thousand handmade Japanese origami paper birds the aircraft slowly fills with luggage spare parts and 3738 pounds of aviation gas increasing its gross weight to nine thousand pounds when the tanks have been topped off and the last piece of gear is stowed away elgin says goodbye to the many friends and members of the family who wish him well they sense the drama of his departure on a flight that has never been accomplished before taking off on one of the last great terrestrial conquests as the door closes and he squeezes through the eight inch wide passageway between the auxiliary fuel tanks to the cockpit long enters the instrument filled space that for over two hundred fifteen hours will keep him in touch with the world below the two 310 horsepower lycoming engines start without hesitation they will perform so well that from pole to pole and back to San Francisco not even one cowl will be removed it is 2 p.m. in the afternoon of November Phil as the heavily loaded aircraft taxis out to runway 2 8 Ted Thomas in the KCBS spotter plane reports the takeoff approximately 3,000 feet of runway no you did celery's and off the runway and he's climbed to about 53 where he's letting the airplane build up some speed it looks like he's made a perfectly safe takeoff that's how it looks of right here [Music] the weather after takeoff out of San Francisco was beautiful all the way up the Oregon Coast it was fine then I ran into a tremendous weather front they'd warned me about it beforehand with moderate to heavy icing conditions over the Gulf of Alaska this was going to be a good icing test for my Navajo it worked out very well I did run into moderate to heavy rime and mixed clear ice over the Gulf of Alaska but the ice our boots and all the systems static systems work perfectly patate heating system worked perfectly I had no trouble with the icing and pushed on to Fairbanks then after a short rest of Fairbanks and we ready at the first light of dawn for the first point on a crossroads flight the North Pole's our flight across the polar ice crossroads endeavour departed Fairbanks at 6:30 3:00 in the morning on the first major leg of the trip north of the Arctic Circle the Sun rises just enough to illuminate the quiet white peaks of the Brooks Range then across the flat expanse of the North Slope to Point Barrow and out over the ice pack of the Arctic Ocean stretching away nearly 3,000 miles into the polar night well as I approach to North Pole every second every minute I was getting further and further away from civilization it's one thing the sudden look at a map and it's another thing to get out there and a plane fly over it I realized I was reading on my own there was no one within hundreds of hundreds of miles that could help me and I lost communications for a while and this even made me feel more lonely but I was comfortable because of the aircraft systems and also because I had taken my winterization advice they said I asked and what should I do to the airplane they said well the only thing I could recommend was take an extra pair of socks so that was all right but as I approached the North Pole a great sense of loneliness during the artic night engulfed me then after I crossed over the pole of course I was elated at reaching my first point on the crossroads flight then I started heading towards Norway in Spitsbergen and I got the oddest sensation I felt that I'm going downhill I can remember even looking at the airspeed indicator to see if I picked up in the airspeed and I felt after flying along for an hour or two and I was 2 or 300 miles south of the pole though I was on solid instruments I felt it I could break out and see down by now I should be able to see palm trees but when I finally several hours later came up on Spitsbergen and it was nothing but ice and snow and bleak loneliness I realized the immensity of the ice pack that by now I was almost blown over the fatigue of the long Arctic night catches up with elgyn faced with bad weather at Stockholm he makes a precautionary fuel stop at tromsø Norway two short hops of under five hours each take him on to Stockholm and London [Music] it seemed like every leg had his peculiarities of fun and and its own problems the leg from London down to a crop was going to take me down across Europe cross Morocco then over the Atlas Mountains as I passed over Marrakesh again I ran in can you imagine this going to the Sahara Desert I run into icing conditions and going over the Atlas Mountains I had to climb up to 15,000 500 feet to have safe terrain clearance and right with the turbo Navajo I climbed up to a safe altitude across the Atlas Mountains and then got rid of my ice once I got over the Sahara Desert on the other side I crossed Algeria and down to Timbuktu I always wanted to go to Timbuktu so I threw it in and on down to a crawl and then of course a crawl as I was taking off for my second point the next morning the equator to crime-ridden long arrived at his second crossroad the intersection of zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude two hours and nine minutes after takeoff from Accra Ghana but this leg had just begun in the next 12 hours and 12 minutes he crossed the 2,000 mile expanse of the Atlantic Ocean to South America after a routine flight of 6 hours and 15 minutes from Recife to Rio de Janeiro on the 16th of November Elgin is joined by his wife Marie to see the sights of the city before the most demanding leg of the endeavor the flight over the South Pole [Music] when we left Rio my airplane and I we arrived at Punta Arenas right on schedule I had half the flight behind me and I had to be in Punta Arenas ready to take off on the 20th of November I had the whole flight planned and I had a six day time window if you will I had six days to get across Antarctica and up to Australia because of the position of the Sun and the moon I had to have them both in southern declination so that they would be available for shooting and I had to have the local hour angle of the moon at least 45 degrees to the Sun so I could get a good cut to get a good celestial fixed over the trackless wastes of Antarctica so there was six days from the 20th to the 26th this meant I had to be ready at Puntarenas to go on the 20th so far thanks to reliability of the Navajo I was there on the 20th right on schedule and I took off within a minute or two at the time I planned almost two years in advance Raina's to McMurdo Sound flight level zero eight zero and will contact one to six decimal seven after takeoff during this tower nine zero nine seven Yankees ready for takeoff [Music] yeah they're born a113 9 for the adventure of a lifetime here goes nothing looks like blue skies up ahead so I'm gonna level off at 4,500 feet here for a while maybe 5,000 I don't want to get into the clouds at all and I can see exactly where I'm going in the real bad mountain that I was worried about I can see it just clear as a bell it's very difficult for people to understand what Antarctica is I mean it's one of the last continents that we've explored and I was the first man who ever crossed Antarctica alone to cross Antarctica is really an undertaking hard to imagine Antarctica is bigger than the United States and Europe combined are almost bigger than the United States and Europe will give you some idea the size it's almost 6 million spur miles it starts out on the coast at about a little low range mountains two or three thousand feet high and it builds up to an immense polar plateau it goes up to 13,000 feet high it's a trackless waste there's no roads there's no AIDS there's no rivers there's no nothing it's just this ocean and ice and no way to navigate this is part of the problem also the south magnetic poles located in that area and also it's a coldest place in the world in the Antarctic winter temperatures have been recorded below a hundred degrees below zero as an expert on Antarctica long is well aware of the dangers involved in this leg you know I'm worried about something I have my right fuel flow started acting up and I lost my heater at the same time and I just wonder if I lost my heater line I don't smell gas or anything but I've got it shut off so get off the cold in here I don't know the batteries this tape recorder or cameras or anything else will work but this electrical system keeps working this is keeps working because boy it's the only thing that's going for me now now it's gonna get mighty cold this airplane down to 25 degrees in the cabin now which isn't bad but outside it's what be seven below zero is the inside temperature will match the outside temperature for him through I just took a drink of water before the water all freezes there not hunger anything hairy don't care get this over with flying on instruments at 13,000 feet long sigh NS guides him precisely to the South Pole as verified by the South Pole radar station he has set his first world record the first solo flight from pole to pole and reached his third crossroads at 255 in the morning of November 22nd for the temperature inside the cabin at 33 degrees below zero and McMurdo still 730 miles away exhaustion is evident in Long's voice would have been a disaster I would go across the street without one of these things anymore it's [Applause] that very good very good I already can't complain I don't know why they eater went out all I can say is I sure like like holding she sure got some 9 tensions here at O 723 on November 22nd long touches down and a 20 not crosswind on ice runway 7 at McMurdo Sound 19 hours and 44 minutes after taking off from Lucca Ramos as he taxis off the runway the entire contingent of McMurdo base is on hand to give the warmest welcome of the trip thoroughly chilled and dead tired long is greeted by captain Eugene van wreaths commander of the u.s. naval forces in Antarctica and heads for six hours of solid sleep minutes later a severe storm hits McMurdo dropping the visibility to zero the Navaho already tied to heavy pallets of gasoline drums is positioned into the wind but fine blowing snow starts to sift into the air intakes and pitot tubes all night long in the light of the Antarctic summer Navy crewmen worked to keep the intakes covered with a parachute and constantly reposition the aircraft into the 60-knot winds [Music] by morning the gale slackens and visibility improves enough for takeoff Navy meteorology is forecasting deteriorating conditions but pre flight preparations cannot be hurried as long begins his thorough inspection heaters are started to warm the engines the auxiliary power unit is connected and the inss alignment begins requiring a minimum of fifteen minutes captain van wreath presents long with an Antarctic scroll and wishes him a safe journey after making sure that everything is ready Jiri enters the plane for the 16 hour flight to Sydney Australia but the strain of the trip is catching up with him in the remaining 10 days he will be unable to make any progress against the increasing exhaustion now the weather is closing in long must be airborne before all visibility is gone once again the reliable engines start without hesitation the taxi checkoff list is complete and the wheels begin to turn on the ice of McMurdo Sound [Music] as long smoothly gently apply as power the Navajo accelerates brakes contact with Antarctica and climbs into the storm is settling over McMurdo okay this is an interview with Elgin long and you are calling from Sydney Australia have you eaten you Thanksgiving meal yet after celebrating a Thanksgiving with real meaning long leaves his 6th continent of touchdown and heads across the South Pacific toward Fiji and a rendezvous with history I wanted to duplicate with my flight as closely as possible the flight that 35 years earlier Miele Earhart and Frederick Noonan had done on their fateful flight to Howland Island so I planned my whole flight to utilize the Sun lines as a line of position approach to Howland Island just like they had done and to see what happened of course my case I put a hood over my eye an S and all I had to do was if nothing worked out turn on my eye NS and see what went wrong and so I wasn't in danger of becoming lost like evidently they became I shot the lines of position I did have a lot of trouble with thunderstorms and she had reported overcast weather and her radio reports to the AtTask and perhaps because of the thunderstorms they didn't realize which side of Howland Island they were on I don't really know my lines of position worked out just like they should have and though I didn't see the island because of clouds very far ahead of me I didn't find the island right in front of me just like it should have been and I think even in a rains fall I would have picked up the island if I had continued on my course I really don't know what went wrong whether he didn't have the right time or had a bad shot but I did find Howland Island well I mean the Earhart was unable to in that July day in 1937 from Howland Island now dressed much differently in the 100 degree heat long precedes direct to his fourth and last crossroad the intersection of the equator and the International Dateline in a short while his $100,000 high n s locates him over this objective as his $2.00 and 98 cent alarm clock tells him at his 421 oh I gotta do is get this thing to Wake Island and awake at 7:00 at 1407 one 4:07 that's 20 hours and 12 minutes and that's the longest flight so far longer than they trauma so leg and that's longer than the plague to McMurdo we're approaching Tokyo now and I'm in contact with Tokyo approach control what is fine I got fujiyama's dead ahead mother of mountains and here we come Tokyo Asia and our seventh pot on the deck Tokyo 0 1 3 1 sharp 0 1 3 1 sharp and we got the Preston everybody here and I better hurry on the 1st of December from the 7th and last continent long heads for Honolulu via Wake Island because of uncertain whether it's been quite a fly Elgin is now in Honolulu getting ready for the last flow at overwater flights from Honolulu to San Francisco and he's checking in now from Hawaii how many days have you think gone now well altogether I think it's gonna be 28 days and how many miles have you flown about 36,000 and how many hours have you sat in that seat that guy just added it up a little while ago I've got over 210 already and another about another 13 to go now you'll spot elgin lawn amenities back in san francisco they'll be the only front one in town that doesn't want to sit down you'll be standing up for a long haul [Music] [Laughter] and as a new radio in San Francisco que CBS News time is 239 time for a situation report now on Elgin long who's flying into San Francisco International Airport let's go to the airport and Dave Michael Hackney 25 year dream operation crossroads he has just touched down on the runway that is rolling out at this very moment we can't see him from here nor can the crowd but so we just checked with air traffic control and they told us that he was on the Bay TRACON approach control handling and then the word came through just man with the girl he had touchdown Elgin long and just taxied up in front of the hangar as the Woodside Bank included playing their salute to him we spotted that bright orange vertical fin with a big American flag on it just seconds to go before you switch to it he's taxied up and here it comes blue and white has become world-famous and now the crowd is waiting there cheering as you can hear and a little fine do from people who are very happy to know that he's back and all as well Elgin will be over here in just a minute 80 and wait for the Frog and then we'll have a chance to recharge informally though the late Elgin with a song California here I come there's the blade back alive a particular National Airport after dreaming about the flight for more than 20 years planning it it shows you that after all that time even though I 44 years of age before I finally got around to it I finally accomplished my dream you know if nothing else happened from the trip but that I encouraged some men and women too not to give up on their dreams but to continue with their hopes and dreams and maybe like to steal from the poet or as Douglas MacArthur said youth is not a time of life it's a state of mind I mean it's a matter of the will if I could encourage other people to do their thing and to live their dreams and accomplish their dreams and not give up on them then it would all be very very worthwhile that alone would make it worthwhile [Music]