O'
THE STATE
A Weekly Survey of North Carolina
Entered as second-class matter, June 1. 1933, at the PoelofHce at Raleigh. North
Carolina, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Vol. XIV. No. 27 November 30, 1946
Gadding About
Over the State
Being I In* ac count of
ли
airplane
trip. a visit to Asheville, the llomer
L. Ferguson
Юлу
celebration in llay-
wootl County and various anil sun¬
dry other things.
By CARL GOFRCII
FOR more than thirteen years
I’ve been traveling the high¬
ways of North Carolina pretty
regularly. Let’s see; thirteen years,
with more than 25,000 miles a
year: that makes a total of 325,000
miles traveled within the borders
of North Carolina. Probably 350,-
000 would be nearer correct.
Naturally, you become pretty
well acquainted with the topog¬
raphy of a state as a result of this
much traveling. For instance, if
someone were to ask me to de¬
scribe any particular town. I could
do so in fairly accurate fashion.
Carthage — courthouse in the center
of the town with business houses
surrounding it. Pittsboro— court¬
house painted red. white and green.
Open space in front of Hall’s de¬
partment store. Lexington -Con¬
federate monument in center of
main street near the courthouse.
Big Coble Dairy Products plant
near the eastern end of the town.
And so on.
It wasn't until I began to take
up flying recently, however, that
I really appreciated the value of
this knowledge. Now. to my in¬
tense gratification, I am finding
that regardless of how mixed up
I may become in the air, I can’t
get lost for more than fifteen min¬
utes at a time. All I have to do
is to find a paved road, follow that
road a short distance until I come
to a town; and then I can identify
the town without any difficulty.
HERE are three ways of flying.
A One is to fly by instruments,
which means that you travel along
without paying any attention to
the ground whatsoever. If you
want to. you can go above the
clouds. By means of various instru¬
ments — too complicated to de¬
scribe in detail here — you always
know exactly where you arc, and
you can make a landing at an air¬
port under the most adverse cir¬
cumstances.
I don't know anything about
instrument flying.
Another way is fly by highway
or railroad. For instance, let’s sup¬
pose you’re planning to fly from
Raleigh to Wilmington. You take
off from the Raleigh airport and
gain sufficient altitude so you can
seen Garner, a short distance
away. When you get over Garner,
you spot the highway leading to
Benson. You keep that highway
constantly below you. When you
get to Benson, you hold out your
hand, signalling for a left turn.
Then you proceed to Newton
Grove, where you signal for a
right turn. And then on to Clinton
and Paul's Store and Wilmington.
That’s the most amateurish of all
flying. Beginners use it for a while
until they become accustomed to
>j >
Used to be that the folks who put
up warnings of this nature were
satisfied to paint their messages
on stones or on rough boards. Hut,
as you can see here, they are now
doing it in much more pretentious
manner. The sign-post is made out
of concrete and the lettering has
been cut into the substance. On the
other side arc the words: “Prepare
to Meet God.*’
This marker is located a couple
of miles west of Asheville.
cross-country traveling, and I lien
they gradually abandon it.
The third plan, and the one
which is used most of all. is con¬
tact flying. It works like this:
T AST week I decided to fly up to
“Asheville and go from there to
Waynesvillc for the purpose of at¬
tending the Homer L. Ferguson
Day celebration. First thing was
to get an aviation map and plot
out a course. A straight line was
drawn from the Raleigh airport
to Marion. From Marion to Ashe¬
ville the line dipped slightly to
the south. The reason for this was
THE STATE. November 30. 1046
3
