In 1966, Susan Oliver--actress and aviator--became the first American in years to receive permission to fly a private plane into Russia. Twelve months later, she set out. Her objective was to establish ten world records, for both men and women, in the category of single-engine aircraft weighing three thousand pounds. Her route would take her approximately eight thousand miles, mostly over dangerous North Atlantic waters. She would fly from New York City to Canada, to Greenland, to Iceland, to Scotland, to Copenhagen in Denmark, and from there, after picking up a Soviet "communicator," she planned to fly to Moscow. Not that she didn't have serious doubts, she informs us: "I have not had time to learn ditching procedures, try out the electric compass, figure out how to work the emergency oxygen tank, or really understand the portable high-frequency radio contraption."