Transport: Men Wanted

During Chicago’s International Air Show, the Assistant Secretary of War, thin-haired, pipe-smoking Colonel Louis Arthur Johnson, puffed out a big boast: “No matter what anyone may say, the United States is supreme today in airplanes—supreme in quality and in numbers.” Colonel Johnson declared “the numbers stand about as follows: U. S. (on hand and under construction) 16,000; France 11,000; Russia 10,000; Great Britain 9,000; Germany 8,000; Italy 7,000; Japan 7,000.” Listeners knew he must be including every last U. S. airplane, from flivver to biggest Army bomber. They knew also that most airplane records for speed, distance and payload, despite Colonel Johnson’s claim to “supremacy,” are held by other countries. All this raised the old question: “What good are planes without pilots?”

Answer came from Captain Edward Vernon (“Eddie”) Rickenbacker, general manager of Eastern Air Lines, famed U. S. World War “Ace of Aces.”* Last week Captain Rickenbacker concluded a series of unpaid articles for Hearstpapers. Excerpts :

“A flyer is good for only four hours [at a stretch]. The process of developing a first-class pilot is three years. The pilot must know meteorology, radio, aerial machine guns, bombs, battle formation. America today needs 100,000 pilots.* Five years hence, our need will be for 500,000 pilots. We need 30,000 planes before this year is out, 5,000 to be utilized in the schools of instruction in every section of the country. Five years hence, our equipment need will be for 100,000 planes.”

U. S. citizens who want to learn to fly have a wide choice of courses to pick from, all dependent on the applicant’s age, fitness, depth of purse. If he wants his training for nothing, the Air Corps will take any healthy, well-schooled male between the ages of 20 and 26, feed, clothe, shelter and train him for a year, pay him $75 a month, almost guarantee a defense force or airline flyer’s job at the end of the course. Last week two other ways were introduced. Tennessee begansending out application blanks for five State schools, accommodating 500 ground pupils each, to be established at major airports. Tuition will be free to physically fit boys & girls over 16. And in the U. S. Senate, New Jersey’s Democrat William H. Smathers put forward an $8,000,000 bill to provide 200 flying fields from coast to coast with airplanes, instructors, free schooling.

Typical of the 21 air academies approved by the Bureau of Air Commerce is San Diego’s Ryan School of Aeronautics, which last week surveyed its 15 years’ activity. Ryan’s students come mostly from farms and small towns. Though the average age of enrollment is 21, each fresh batch includes a few middle-aged executives, bankers, retired Army & Navy officers. Seventeen instructors teach ten full courses each year, turn out master navigators for $100; radio engineers, $250; master mechanics, $495; private and limited commercial pilots, $545 to $795; commercial pilots, $2,285; master pilots, $3,275. The two-year aeronautical engineering course costs $1,275. Most parents help with fees, though Ryan finds oldsters “lukewarm to aviation.” In 15 years only one student has been killed. No jobs are guaranteed, but most of the 137 students who graduate this year will get into airlines, airports, become aircraft dealers or salesmen.

*His war record: 21 enemy planes shot down. Germany’s No. 1 Ace Manfred von Richthofen: 80. France’s Rene Fonck: 75. Canada’s William Avery (“Billy”) Bishop: 72. *The Bureau of Air Commerce lists 17,983 active Pilot Certificates of Competency, 40,006 active Student Pilot Certificates.