AERONAUTICS: Prediction

Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, writing in the Saturday Evening Post: “. . . I think there is little doubt that within the next few years there will be scheduled flying across both the Atlantic and Pacific, connecting the continental lines of the Eastern and Western hemispheres. In fact, I do not believe it is too visionary to predict that the time is coming when, except for short distances, all first-class passengers will travel by air.”

Fare v. Fear

In the past two months, fare-cutting in the air transport business has assumed remarkable proportions.— In many cases it is now cheaper to travel by air than by first-class rail-Pullman.

Results. In all cases there has been great increase in passenger traffic. T. A. T. notes an increase between 100% and 135%. Since the Aviation Corp.’s cut went into effect Jan. 22, their increase has hovered around the 100% mark. Western Air Express notes a smaller increase because their rates are not quite as low.

Financially (unless they are being “cheerful spenders”) the companies’ reports indicate the wisdom of rate-cutting. They are still losing money, but not much more than at the high passenger rates, and any additional loss can be charged off to advertising, a long-haul investment.

First Riders. Underlying the rate-cuts were two aspects of one theory: 1) a lot of people had never flown, not because of fear but because of the fare. Get these people off the ground once and they might well fly again, become regular customers. 2) The people who could not afford high fares are far more numerous, and perhaps less precious about their personal safety, than persons of larger means and importance. The salesman is likely to be a less self-coddling person than the Sales Manager.

Disadvantage. The drawback to the rate-cuts was that they could only be temporary. When the lean, passengerless winter months have passed, many a company will continue its low rates to give the customers some cheap travel in fine flying weather. But if budgets are to be anywhere near balancing, a summer harvest at higher rates will have to be taken. To effect this increase gradually, to speed the day when fares can be kept permanently low, all operators have similar plans in mind.

Solutions, 1) Operating costs will be brought down by stripping deadwood from the company personnel. (T. A. T. Maddux last week announced the retirement of six officials.)

2) Additional revenue will be expected from the proposed air mail plan, by which waste space will be utilized to increase pay load (TIME, Jan. 27).

3) New planes will be developed to carry twice, thrice the present pay load, at about the same overhead expense. (To this end, Fokker Aircraft Corp. has developed a 32-passenger ship. Western Air Express has taken the first five of these planes. W. A. E. will presumably take the additional output as its president, Harris M. Hanshue, is also president of Fokker. Claude Dornier, German designer of the 170-passenger DO-X, is now in the employ of General Motors [which virtually controls Fokker]. It is understood that William Stout, designer of the Ford tri-motor, is at work on larger planes.)

Glider Business

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, particularly tiny in a pair of overalls built for her six-foot husband, was strapped into a frail motorless aircraft last week and shot out into southern California sunshine. The 1,000-ft. elevation of Mount Soledad. near La Jolla, north of San Diego, allowed her a long curleycue glide of six minutes duration. Landing in a field about four miles from her starting point qualified her for a preliminary certificate. For a license, how ever, one is supposed to make a five-minute flight and return to one’s starting point, such as Mrs. Lindbergh’s husband had made some days before in the William Hawley Bowlus U. S. record-breaking craft. So neatly did the officials think Mrs. Lindbergh had glided, however, they decided to give her a license anyway. Another gliding performance of last week was the dropping of a glider at 3,000-ft. altitude from the belly of the Navy dirigible Los Angeles, for the first time. The objects of this experiment were practical : for discharging mail and passen gers at way-stations in later days of airship commerce; an effective method of introducing spies into enemy territory without the advertisement of a roaring motor.

In the early days of gliding, control in flight was effected by actual shifting of the pilot’s weight, a method hardly airworthy by modern standards. Modern gliders have facilities to seat the pilot comfortably, provide him with airplane controls, protect him from weather. The aeronautics branch of the U. S. Department of Commerce will inspect and license gliders as it does motored ships, to insure airworthy craft for hopeful beginners.

“Something” Wrong

When a public airplane crashes, bursts into flames, destroys its passengers, two desires arise. The operating company wants to remove the wreckage quickly: charred remains are bad advertising. The Federal Government wants to examine the wreckage: charred remains may contain lessons for the public good.

When a Universal Aviation Corp. plane crashed and burned four passengers and the pilot at Kansas City one evening last fortnight, the Department of Commerce’s district inspector, Richard H. Lees Jr., made a quick examination, gave permission for Universal mechanics to set to with their hacksaws and axes while the twisted wreckage was still warm. Coroner Ben F. Coffin, thus prevented from holding an inquest, demanded a thoroughgoing inquiry. The week ran out and still no cause for the crash was assigned beyond a vague: “Something wrong with the controls.”

These proceedings were little liked by that greatest guardian of aviation in the U. S. Senate, Hon. Hiram Bingham of Connecticut. He has pending a bill to invest the Department of Commerce with power to ascertain facts and publish causes of accidents. Up he now rose to say: “It is possible some aviation companies are blocking this legislation on the ground that it will hurt their business. But in the end they will suffer more if the public is not informed.”

Safety Rules

Better than locking the hangar after the plane has crashed, by inspecting the wreckage (see above), is defining and enforcing a code to prevent crashes. Such a code was last week the subject of an all-day conference between Assistant Secretary of Commerce Clarence M. Young and experts of the leading transport companies. Essentials of the Safety Code agreed upon:

Two-way radio aboard-ship for weather advices, emergency calls.

Intermediate landing-fields en route.

Weather-reporting service.

Night-flying facilities including airline beacons on earth, navigating and landing lights aboard-ship.

Frigid Test

Battered but triumphant, nursing frostbitten faces, fingers and toes, 19 of the Army’s “Arctic patrol” flyers (TIME, Jan. 20) roared down last week on Self ridge Field, their home port, after 19 days of frigid-test flying. Throughout the 6,000-mi. round trip to Spokane, many were the difficulties, painful the exposure encountered. Motors did not start easily after sub-zero nights. In the pursuit planes were no electrical devices to heat the flying suits or warm solidified motor oil. Three tri-motor transports failed to keep up with the faster pursuit ships. Bad weather disrupted the careful schedule of Major Ralph Royce, flight leader. Motor trouble forced the squadron down time after time. Lowest ebb was at Great Falls, Mont., when nine planes were grounded. Though two of his ships were still out, Major Royce declared the frigid test “a success, in that it accomplished its purpose to determine how present equipment will cope with winter conditions.”

Amphibian Antics

Popular are combined land-and-water planes. Of the several companies making them, Loening and Sikorsky sell the lions’ share. Amphibian antics include that of the pilot forgetting to lower his wheels (amphibians fly more efficiently with wheels retracted into the boat hull) when landing upon ground, bumping the ship down on its bottom. Six Army pilots are the flustered holders of handles on a mock wooden loving cup presented by Major Maxwell Kirby, commandant of Luke Field, Hawaii, for this foolish bit of navigation.

Latest amphibian antic was by one Hubert B. Griggs, flying from Bridgeport to Chicago in a Sikorsky. He tried to take off from a field in Bryan. Ohio, found his wheels stuck in the mud and slush. Resourcefully, he tucked the wheels up into the hull, revved up his Wasp motors, slithered across the field “belly-flopper,” got into the air—first time such a feat had been done.

* Present rates per mile: Transcontinental Air Transport—between 5¢ and 6¢ Aviation Corp.—(Embry-Riddle, Universal, Southern Air Transport) 5.5¢; (Colonial) 8.7¢ Stout Air Lines—7.5¢ Western Air Express—8.46¢