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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0001.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 1, '932 TEMPLE HUNTING IN CENTRAL AMERICA BY ROBERT A. SMITH, F.R.O.S.. A.R.Ae.S. The author is an Englishman, born in London, where his father still lives. During the war he served first in the R.A.F., and afterwards as photographic officer of the Canadian Air Force with rank of Pilot Officer. He has flown over 3,000 hours on aerial photographic survey work. The photographs were taken with Fairchild cameras. w HAT would an exploration expedition be without its guns, machetes, assorted knives, field glasses, and the like? Certainly, no matter what the prospect of using these lethal and semi-lethal implements on an excursion into the wilds, they are appur tenances which cannot be omitted from the explorer's equipment. But Cuban customs officials have their own pet notions about the utility of firearms and cutlery ; the things are too closely associated with Latin-America's special brand of political disagreement to be regarded as useful for anything but revolution. Because we neglected to investigate the condition of Cuba's politics on the day we took off at Miami, we did not suspect the surprise awaiting us when we landed at Havana. Nor did we imagine, as we calmly (perhaps naively) dumped out our armament for customs inspec tion, that we had suddenly and unwittingly become menaces to the incumbent rulers instead of explorers. But we soon learned what Cuba thought of us. The customs officials simply confiscated our artillery and kjlives, and promptly lugged them off, so we wouldn't take sides in their own private dispute. Whether or not during the night someone took the pains to expound to them the difference between explorers and revolutionists, I don't know. But early the next morn ing all our cutlery was returned to us as we prepared to take off on our way to Northern Yucatan, Guatemala, and British Honduras in search of ancient temple ruins. Our expedition to locate and photograph these old Mayan remains was sponsored by the University of Penn sylvania. We left Miami, December 2, in a twin-engined Sikorsky S-38 amphibian belonging to Pan American Airways. Our party included Gregory Mason, the ex plorer ; J. Alden Mason, curator of the University of Pennsylvania Museum ; Percy C. Madiera, Jr. ; Capt. Frank Ormsby, pilot; William H, Carey, co-pilot and radio operator ; and myself as photographer In all, we covered approximately 8,000 land miles, finding and photo graphing several previously unknown Mayan temples. After our little episode with the Cuban customs inspec tors, we left Havana at 7.47 on the morning of December 3, heading east over the ground fog, and landed one hour later at San Julien, at the eastern point of Cuba. This is one of the petrol stations of Pan American Airways. Refuelling here, we left again at 9.36, and crossed the Caribbean Sea to Cozumel Island, on the north coast of Yucatan, which, after a round of chicken sandwiches and hot coffee, and a few minutes' sleep to alleviate the monotony of the uninteresting floor of water below, we crossed at 11.09 near Cape Catoche. Modern trail from Vallodolid to Ruin of Chemax Church (visible in distance), railway through the dense forests of Northern Yucatan. 3 An extraordinary ri
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