B-18 bombers over Death Valley and the Sierra Nevada
Seen from a bomber's window, dunes and scrub of Death Valley lie below, and a twin-engined B-18 flies over bare mountain ridges.
Through the curved frame of a window, pale dunes ridged by the wind and clumps of dark scrub lie beneath a low-flying aircraft; alongside, a heavy twin-engined bomber with a glazed nose and the letters BS on its tail flies level over deeply folded, bare mountains, the engine of the camera aircraft in the foreground.
The source describes a flight by B-18A bombers of the Army Air Corps from Death Valley, the lowest point in the United States, to the Sierra Nevada with its highest peaks. Derived from the DC-2 airliner, the B-18 was the most numerous American bomber of the late 1930s, soon outclassed by the four-engined B-17. The pictures ran in MGM's newsreel News of the Day.
