In the early morning of December 28, 1934 while en route to Minneapolis from Chicago in a Hanford Air Ford Trimotor , Jim and pilot Dick Pears nearly crashed into downtown Rockford, IL. The conditions were heavy, low clouds and they had "picked up a load of ice during a severe ice storm...". This caused quite a ruckus in town as can be seen in the newspaper accounts. Hanford Airlines had a contract to fly the mail and had been granted two air mail routes - A.M. 16 from Chicago to Winnipeg and A.M. 26 from Kansas City to Minneapolis. Jim flew the A.M. 16 loop for this outfit from July until the end of December 1934. Almost all of Jim's log entries while with Hanford Air were night flights.
A Ford Trimotor Similar to what Jim Flew
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Jim's account was somewhat less dramatic than that of the press except for the cryptic notation "about - Finish"
