Almost

Clarence Duncan Chamberlin was twice displeased last week by leaks. A fuel pump failed on his Bellanca plane and brought him and his companion Roger Q. Williams down to earth. Soon they went up again, circled, idled, wandered back and forth, wasting time, waiting. A tiny hole drained tiny drops from their gas tank. They came back to earth again 51 hours, 52 minutes, 24 seconds later, defeated by this tiny hole. They failed by half an hour and seven seconds to supplant the German world's record (TIME, Aug. 15) for endurance flying.