AERONAUTICS: The Industry

Vickers, Ltd. Disclosed last week was the fact that Vickers, Ltd., England’s great shipbuilding and ordnance concern, owns outright The Airship Guarantee Co., Ltd,, which has built and last week was ready to test-fly the British dirigible R-100, ordered by the British government. (The British Air Ministry itself is building the Commonwealth’s other dirigible, R-101.) When the Government accepts the R-100 it will immediately resell her to Airship Guarantee Co. at half the contract price on condition that she will be used on experimental long-distance passenger flights within the Empire. (The R-101 is destined for trans-Atlantic service.)

Vickers also controls, according to the revelations, The Supermarine Aviation Works, Ltd., builders of the speedy Supermarine Rolls-Royce.

Fokker’s 32-Passenger. Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, 39, Java-born Dutchman, founder of the U. S. and Holland Fokker industries, last week flew his first 32-passenger sleeper plane, at Teterboro, N. J., airport. As in Pullman cars, its seats can be rearranged for berths. Distinctive are the plane’s two pairs of Wasp-motors fixed tandem, and its twin rudders which are adjustable to compensate for varying engine speeds. On his trial flight Mr. Fokker set its tail on a fence. A drizzle preceded another test flight. Spectators voiced doubt that the ship would try the run under such bad conditions.

Exclaimed Mr. Fokker: “My ship is not a lump of sugar. It won’t melt in the rain.” In flight the huge ship showed stability, maneuverability. Universal Air Lines ordered the plane and four replicas for its proposed day-&-night transcontinental service.

Baltimore’s Aviation. Baltimore at her 100th anniversary (1829) fell in step with the very first U. S. railroads. At her 200th anniversary celebration last week (see p. 16) she was not only in step with the newest transportation, aviation, but well up at the head of the march. Items: The Aviation Corp. last week bought a $500,000 factory site to build Dornier all-metal transports; Glenn L. Martin Co. was to move into its new plant this week; Curtiss-Caproni Corp.’s new factory was almost completed; Berliner-Joyce Aircraft Corp. had just completed its first commercial biplane; Doyle Aero Corp. was producing commercial biplanes; a 400-acre municipal airport was under construction; Curtiss Flying Service was building a 360-acre airport.

Canadian-U. S. Route. To form a segment in a proposed transport system across southern Canada and northern U. S., R. C. Lilly and other St. Paul-Minneapolis businessmen last week bought control of Northwest Airways (Chicago to St. Paul-Minneapolis line). Canadian planes will cross into the U. S. at Detroit, fly by way of Chicago and St. Paul-Minneapolis to Winnipeg, thence westward to Vancouver.

Santa Fe’s Story on Air Transportation. Like the best of horsemen, who might try to make a race horse and a draft horse pull smoothly in a team, William Benson Storey has his troubles. He is president of The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. Also, he is closely interested in Transcontinental Air Transport, which uses Santa Fe rail service for part of its route and competes with the Santa Fe for more. Also, he is director of the Railway Express Agency, Inc., for whose business both the rail and his air systems compete.

Last week Mr. Storey was in Manhattan, which he visits so often from his Chicago headquarters that he belongs to two Manhattan clubs (Metropolitan and Midday). This occasion he took to say things comforting to railroad stockholders and not depressing to air transport stock holders. Said he: “The airplane is used solely by a few persons to whom time is extremely valuable. The motor vehicle competes with us [railroads] in passenger traffic because it can operate on publicly owned roads at lower costs, and it can, at times, provide service more convenient than can the railroads. No such competition in point of cost and convenience is afforded by the airplane.”

Of rumors that the Railway Express Agency might go into partnership with some air transport concerns, he said that he had no knowledge.

357.7 m.p.h.

Fast went England’s supermarine Rolls-Royce seaplane at 332.49 m.p.h. over the Solent Spithead Schneider Marine Aviation Cup course last fortnight (TIME, Sept. 16). Faster it went on straight dashes last week over Southampton water. Capt. Augustus H. Orlebar of the British Schneider Cup team handled its controls. Forth and back, forth and back, four times on two different days he spurted over a three-kilometre (1.864 mi) course. His average speed per mile the first series was 355.825 m.p.h., the second series 357.7. His fastest lap was 368.8 m.p.h. Instead of being pleased with himself and the plane, Capt. Orlebar was downcast. He had broken the official record for man’s fastest motion by 39.1 m.p.h. But he had moved even faster in practice spins.

That was man’s fastest authenticated travel. If Capt. Orlebar could have maintained 357.7 m.p.h., the official record, he could have flown from Manhattan to St. Louis (880 mi.) in 2 hr. 28 min.; to Kansas City (1,360 mi.) in 3 hr. 48 min.; to Seattle (3,095 mi.) in 8 hr. 39 min.