"Just Like an Eagle"

Everytime he saw a mountain, Air Force Reserve Lieut. John Hodgkin was seized by an overwhelming urge to land an airplane on it. It had been tough when he was a boy--his wheezy, old Curtiss-Wright pusher with its 45-h.p. engine was no match for the Sierra Nevadas towering over his home in Selma, Calif.

But after the war, he bought a surplus Piper Cub and went after the mountains with a vengeance. He kept going higher & higher until one day he plunked his white-winged Cub down on the 12,400-ft. level of California's Mount Shasta. "It was great," he exulted. But still he was not satisfied.

Last week Lieut. Hodgkin, an elderly party (42) as the stunt-flying business goes, pulled on his long underwear, loaded his plane with blankets and took off to conquer Washington's sullen, 14,408-ft. Mount Rainier, fourth highest peak in the continental U.S. A friend in another private plane flew alongside just to keep an eye on him. Hodgkin's tiny plane toiled upward. About 400 ft. from the summit Hodgkin cut the gun, headed downhill into the shrieking updraft and settled in to a neat landing on a shallow slope. "It was easy," he said later. "But when I tried to start the engine, it wouldn't catch. Was I embarrassed."

The friend raced back to notify the Air Force at McChord Field. Within 45 minutes a 6-17 roared over, dropped food, a radio, a small stove and warm clothes. Late that night National Park Service rangers worked their way toward the summit in 20-below-zero weather. Hodgkin said he sat in the cockpit, struggling to keep his frail craft from flipping over in the 70-mile-an-hour gale that howled over the peak. "That plane was-flying tied down," he added. "If those tie ropes had been longer, I'd have soared up like a kite."

Next day, after two more planes had dropped survival gear, Hodgkin got worried about all the money being wasted on him. "I just pulled the tie ropes, gave the ship a shove downhill and away I went, just like an eagle." The B-17 flew over again. "The bird's flown the coop," its radio cackled. Hodgkin, still unable to start his engine, had calmly dead-sticked in to a landing on a frozen lake, 9,071 feet below.

The Air Force talked about a court-martial. The National Park people muttered darkly about a $500 fine for flyers who go around landing on their mountain tops--their rescue team was stuck up on the icy peak. Said Hodgkin: "I think Americans are beginning to lose their self-reliance. I'd be glad to fly back up there and get them."

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