The aircraft staggered into the air with 100 yards to spare. Flying straight ahead, wallowing near a stall, the fuel-bloated Bellanca inched up above the waves. When they had a safe margin of height, Pangborn turned slowly onto a heading of 072 degrees–heading toward the Aleutians.

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Three hours out, on track and approaching the Kurile Islands, Pangborn was satisfied that everything was operating normally and jettisoned the landing gear. The main structure fell away but two of the gear's bracing rods did not drop clear. Pangborn realized that they posed a real threat to a safe belly landing and that he would have to work them free during the flight. Devoid of 300 pounds of landing gear and its drag, Miss Veedol climbed to 14,000 feet, where it picked up a good tail wind.

The sun went down and they began to encounter airframe icing in the clouds. To stay clear of clouds, they climbed to 17,000 feet where conditions were smooth and ice-free. Pangborn decided this was the ideal time to try to get rid of the two dangling struts. Handing over control to Herndon, the steel-nerved airman put his flying circus wing-walking skills to good use. Struggling against the frigid 100-mph slipstream, Pangborn eased out of the cockpit and placed his feet on the broad strut that supported the Bellanca's wing. Holding on for dear life with one hand, with the other he removed one of the offending brace rods. Pangborn clambered back into the cockpit, warmed himself, then repeated the procedure on the other side. Through the night it was bitterly cold. He recalled, The water in our canteens and even our hot tea froze.

The first real position check was a volcano in the Aleutians, and the two men were delighted to see it loom directly below them. Pangborn remained at the controls, with Herndon responsible for keeping the main wing tanks topped up from the huge auxiliary cabin tank. This required him to transfer fuel with a hand-operated wobble pump. Twice he forgot the task. The first time he was able to pump fuel fast enough to keep the spluttering Wasp engine running. On the second occasion, Herndon's carelessness nearly cost the men their lives when the propeller stopped dead.

The Bellanca was not equipped with an electric starter. Pangborn had no alternative but to dive the airplane in the hope of getting the propeller to windmill. Yelling at Herndon to start pumping, Pangborn steepened the dive, desperately trying to turn the propeller in the rarefied air. They had lost 13,000 feet and were only 1,500 feet above the ocean when it finally began to windmill and the engine burst into life again.

The only word of their progress during the whole flight came from an island in the Aleutians where an amateur radio operator radioed to America that he had heard an airplane passing over above the clouds. No one was quite sure of their final destination, though Pangborn's mother was adamant that her son would choose his hometown Wenatchee, Wash., as his landing site. She was among 30 locals who maintained a vigil at its little airfield.

Pangborn sighted the tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the northwestern coast of Canada and knew the worst of the navigation was over. He had been at the controls for more than 30 hours. Aware that the tricky job of belly landing lay not too far ahead of them, he decided to catch a few hours of sleep. He instructed Herndon to hold the current height and heading and to wake him when he saw the lights of a big city. That will be Vancouver, British Columbia, Pangborn yelled.

Once again Herndon's inattention let them down. When Pangborn awoke some hours later, his cavalier co-pilot had wandered off course and missed both Vancouver and Seattle. Ahead of them was Mount Rainier. Pangborn decided to carry on inland to Boise, Idaho, which would also give them a new world's nonstop distance record. However, two hours later, when it became evident the Boise area was covered in fog, they turned toward Spokane, Wash. When that destination appeared to be covered by low clouds, Pangborn decided to head for Wenatchee.

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