well, well - I tried Google[books] (is there a verb for that action yet?!] and got two hits: the Spillane novel from 1976 and something by Lowell Thomas (1927) called European skyways: the story of a tour of Europe by airplane. here's the citation from the latter (Google has only a snippet):

He must have seen the last-gasp-of-a-dying-fish look on my face, because the mechanic sitting next to Olley left the cockpit, crawled back into the cabin, took off his helmet and goggles, and handed them to me.

(there is a also a Preview of the Spillane novel (The Erection Set), and being somewhat intrigued by the title, I proceeded to amazon and found this amusing customer review, "I thought this would be enjoyably bad but it was just plain lousy.")

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