AERONAUTICS: Rentschler Triumphant

Swiftly, spectacularly, the “fight for supremacy in the industry” (TIME, April 14 et seq.) was ended last week when United Aircraft & Transport Corp. wrung control of National Air Transport Inc. from the Curtiss-Keys group.

United’s Frederick Brant Rentschler became president and board chairman of NAT, supplanting Earle Reynolds and Howard E. Coffin. Other old-guard directors surrendered their chairs to United men.

But the victors were not unscarred by battle, for their determination to amass a controlling majority of NAT stock sent the price soaring. During the first quarter of this year, the price range was between 11 and 25¾. United paid as high as 30 to gain its end. Finally they were forced to give one share of United for three of NAT. (United’s original offer was one-for-three-and-one-half.)

What United Bought. NAT system consists of:

35 cargo transport planes (mostly Douglas and Curtiss Falcon) valued at $362,000.

Eight hangars and one general office building. Value: $350,000.

2,272 miles of airways.

289 total personnel (including 36 pilots).

Significance. United acquires NAT’S contract airmail routes between New York, Chicago and Dallas. Joined with its own Boeing lines, operating between Chicago and San Francisco, United now controls a complete (and unique) transcontinental system, and the largest total system in the U. S. passenger service is soon to be inaugurated on the New York-Chicago division.

Under the terms of the McNary-Watres Airmail Bill passed by the House last fortnight (TIME, April 28) and by the Senate last week, NAT’S mail contracts which would expire May 5 may be extended another six years without the Postmaster General’s calling for other bids. However, with its plentiful passenger equipment (Transcontinental Air Transport) and strategically located airports (Curtiss-Wright Airports Corp.), the Curtiss-Key group may yet challenge Mr. Rentschler’s bold claim that “the air between the coasts is not big enough to be divided.”

Seven Days To B. A.

With Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh (technical adviser) to fly the first ship, Pan American Airways, Inc., is serenely certain of far-flung publicity upon the opening of any new route. As thrice before, Pan American received it in full measure last week when Lindbergh piloted a Sikorsky amphibian from Miami 1,200 mi. over water to Cristobal, C. Z., inaugurating a new seven-day mail service from New York to Buenos Aires. The Caribbean hop cuts four days from the route previously used via Belize, Tela, Managua, David and Panama City. The new schedule calls for at least 1,000 mi of flight per day.

Pickwick Out

All U. S. airlines carrying passengers only lost money last year. Such operators have been hanging on with the sole hope of acquiring mail contracts. Last week Pickwick Latin-American Airways Inc. found its burden too great, suspended its service between Los Angeles, Mexico City and San Salvador. Other U. S.-Mexico airlines: Compania Mexicana de Aviacion (subsidiary of U. S.-owned Pan American Airways, Inc.) and Corporacion Aeronautica de Transportes (“CAT lines”) which connects with domestic routes at El Paso and Brownsville, Tex.

“Hell Diver”

Naval aircraft in bombing maneuvers used to fly at a safe altitude directly over their target, “lay their eggs,” hope for a hit. Rarely were they rewarded. Newer strategy is to dive upon the enemy battleship, release the bombs, pull up sharply—the bomb continuing the path of the dive. Under this terrific strain, wings of an ordinary airplane would crumple like paper.

Last week, in response to a Navy call for bombing craft, Curtiss presented its new Wasp-powered XF8C-4 biplane at Mitchell Field, L. I. Testpilot William Crosswell put the ship through gruelling 7,000-ft. vertical dives, throttle wide open, levelling off suddenly at 300 m. p. h. His observer was taken so ill that a substitute was necessary.

The new plane somewhat resembles the Vought Corsair in appearance but has the swept-back wings of the Curtiss Falcon. Since all Curtiss planes are named for birds (Robin, Condor, Thrush, etc., etc.) the new, one has been tentatively dubbed Hell Diver.

47 Seconds

High over San Francisco’s Golden Gate during last week’s western war games, Flyer-Artist Clayton Knight sketched the position of two “enemy submarines” driving toward the metropolis. He handed the chart to Lieut. Haydn P. Roberts, radio engineer, who inserted it in a cylindrical machine. Forty seven seconds later the drawing was reproduced in a receiving device at Mather Field, 75 mi. away, whence a squadron of bombers was sent to destroy the invaders. While the picture was being transmitted, Flyer-Artist Knight conversed with ground officers, elaborated on the scene. Based on a principle akin to telephotography, the radiophoto device was developed by Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co.

Lieut. Roberts had more realistic practice with the device later when he saw one of the “blue” Army planes plunge to earth in real trouble, followed by a floating parachute. Roberts dashed off a map showing the wreck, flashed it to headquarters. The man with the parachute (he landed safely) was Lieut. Irving A. Woodring, sole survivor of the Army’s famed “Three Musketeers” flying team. Lieuts. W. L. Cornelius and J. J. Williams, his onetime partners, were killed in California two years ago (TIME, Oct. 8, 1928).

Flights & Flyers

Royal Escape. Nervous Britons who frown upon the hardy diversions of their Prince of Wales were chilled last week by the crash of a Royal Air Force plane which had just carried the Prince from Khartum to Cairo, on his way home from South Africa. A flying officer and an aircraftsman (pilot and copilot) were killed. Shocked, Edward of Wales was not unnerved. Well aware of the flying tradition that prescribes the “army cure”* he announced he was impatient to get home and wanted his personal pilot to pick him up at Marseilles. British airmen applauded. Pilot and an escort were ready and waiting at Marseilles. With a luncheon stop at Le Bourget, where another escort of ten French fighting ships joined them, the Prince and his party flew the 615 miles to Windsor from Marseilles in 6 hr. 10 min.

The Prince’s plane landed virtually on his own lawn, at Windsor Great Park. His pet Cairn terrier, Cora, barked a joyous welcome. His brothers, the Duke of York and Prince George, greeted him, whisked him away to Fort Belvedere where his parents waited.

Packard’s Woolson. Two weeks ago France and Germany each lost a crack airman in airplane accidents (TIME, April 28). Last week a crack U. S. aeronautical engineer, Capt. Lionel M. Woolson, and two others perished in the crash of a Verville Air-coach powered with the Packard Diesel engine which Capt. Woolson had developed.

Carl B. Knight of Detroit, Verville testpilot, held the controls, with Harold B. Scutt of Douglaston, N. Y., beside him when the ship took off from Buffalo for New York where it was to be exhibited in the forthcoming air show. Near Attica a sudden snowstorm blew a swirling, opaque curtain about the cabin. Knight tried to turn about. Blindly he drove the ship full into a snow-covered hill.

Thus neither Capt. Woolson nor his Diesel engine could in any way be held responsible for the tragedy. Nor was his death entirely in vain. A great claim for the Woolson Diesel is the elimination of fire hazard due to the use of nonexplosive crude oil fuel. The accident justified this claim—no fire leaped from the split fuel tanks to cremate what life might have survived.

Once a racing car driver, later a mechanical engineer, Capt. Woolson’s notable career as an aircraft designer began in the Army air corps, where he helped design the Liberty motor. After the War he was continuously associated with Packard Motor Co., for which he designed motors of varied types. Among them were the dirigible Shenandoah’s engines, the motor used by Commander John Rodgers on his Pacific flight of 1926, the racing motors intended for use by Lieut. Alford Joseph Williams in the Schneider Trophy races (TIME, Sept. 16). His greatest achievement was the perfection of the Diesel, which represented ten years of work, principally in the reduction of weight. People who associate the name Diesel with large and ponderous marine engines splendidly adapted for heavy duty service, are always greatly surprised to see Capt. Woolson’s relatively delicate air Diesel.

* An Army flyer takes to the air as soon as possible after an accident, as a quick nerve-restorative.