I was sitting alone in a movie not long ago. The newsreel came on.
Jimmie Doolittle's capable but impish face flashed upon the screen.
Behind him was the fast, low-wing, all-metal Vultee plane in which he
had just failed to better by more than a few minutes the Los Angeles--New
York record for transport planes.
"I'm sorry I didn't make faster time," his picture spoke. "I didn't do
justice to the ship I flew. I wandered off my course during the night
and hit the coast 200 miles south of where I should have hit it. It was
just another piece of bum piloting."