Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1928, Page 102

THE SUNDAY 'STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €., DECEMBER 16, 1928—PART T enough. I wasn't taking any chances about what the tiny folks might do to my plane were 1 t0 leave it alone for any length of time. So I remained all by my lonesome for & couple of hours among the doubtful strangers reputed |to be cannibalistic. “Meanwhile I wanted to take some ction pictures, as well as gather to- Whereupon, after :M 1 pygmy Savages of New Guinea Won to Friencuy Negotiations by Tactful Worcl and Display of Brightly Colored Gooc]s. Scarch for New Varieties of Sugar Cane Is Conducted for American Government. % BY JAMES N. MILLER. IGH above the mouniainous, jungled interior of the island of | New Guinea, just south of the| Night in Cannibal Land Passed in Safety by Washington Fliers H ey ettt civin aoll} | | sped on an afterncon iate last Summer. Within the plane were Pilot Richard X. Peck, known as “the most resourceful fiyer that ever risked his life above t7, | opical junglos Dr. E. W. Braad suzar cane expert of the United Stat Department of Agriculture, and | m | 8tther some curios. giving them a few beads, a couple pright-colored cigarette tins, a han lof colored calico and two or three | safety razor blades, and receiving there- Chan®; vidaly known rallan | for a native drum made of bamboo, explorer. ‘The group wes a section of | ¢ some spears and trinkets, I took out my Dr. Brandes’ latest exploration party, | " ! motion picture camer: designed to seck in the tropical wilds | \ B | “While the pygmies were just & bit those native and prim! i 3 | skeptical as to_what kind of a device sugar cane that might | that might be, I soon gained their con- ern States’ plante:s b; | fidence by letting some of them glance immune to th» discases end | through the lens. Then, by means of | sign language, I managed to persuade a that have proved degtructi America’s cultivated plants. Had anything eericu happen=d to | en th> result | to its occupents certeinly would have | meant destruction, either immediately | or ultimately. For a crashed plane on| the water would have involved o s what too intimate contact ng crecodiles, while an forced landing on the ground have been complet out of th tion, not_only valueless on land but baca: 15 entirely without a lan ing filled to overflowing with I covered with dense forest: Luckily, however, the without mishap. Peck skimmed the ¢ in graceful fashion, “taxied” the plans a fev the stream and picparcd craft to shore. What happencd th after to the explorers is an adves story of which oid Robinson C: himself might woll be envious. Stuck fast in th> mud for more an hour on the cdg2 of a cannidal vi lage, the white mon were foreed to ¢ overnight w a curious zort of tive people h as thay had nov before—pygmics. roly a few I taller than 4 feet. living in tree h practicing quaint o huge bows and arrow adept at throwniz spears. | But no ope can tell the story better | than Pilot Peck himself. So let the| daring aviator describe his thrilling ex- | periences in his own way | “New Guinea, one of the v lergest islands in the Pacific. stretches some 13500 miles long and 500 miles acros: Always it has been a fascinating source of study for the student of primiti plant, anime! and human life. An' 2ir of mystery has pervaded the remote island, the reasons being that a moun- tain rarge extends along 2lmost through the very center from end end, and that the island is so thi jungled in & interior porii attempt to ¢zeverse it by foot or other| ground means of travel has besn simply | out of the question. “The ‘isiand is divided between the Netherlands, which owns the western half, and Great Britain and Australia, | which lay claim to. portions of the east- | ern half. This last region was the one | we traversed by scaplane last Summer. * ok ox % ¢JTROM time to time scientists from various nations have essayed to investigate certain scattered sections of New , notably the Ausiralicn government, which lent us valuable aid and advice on our recent. trip. But without the plane method they found themselves up against a stone wall. It | is safe to say that not until the years| 1925 and 1926 was much vaiuable light thrown upon the character of the piant | and animal life of the mysterious intc- rior. Then it was that Mathew Stirling | of Washington, chief of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, ex- g;‘flefl the western (or Netherlands) f by the seaplane method. The trip marked the first time, it is understood, . that this unique method of travel was tried out on a sizable scale in New Guinea. I happened to be Mr. Stirling's pilot, and for eight and a half months we with primitive saveges. But that, of course. is another story. “Naturally enough, Dr. Brandes' re- cent tion trip, covering as it did the en the plane method for the first time in history, required a great deal of prepa- ration. Many a confab did we have with officials of the Australian govern- ment located at Port Moresby, on the eastern coast, as to what kind of curious folk might be found in the mountainous interior, and how we might best hope to gain their confidence. tu; | cav eastern half of the island by | RICHARD K. PE EXAMINING SOME LOW, LEFT HANI “On2 of the main phasized concerned h 8 es whon first we met them. the word Sambio &t cach and every opportunity,’ our advicers chorused, ‘and you will thercby convey the impression thet you are g mission,’ We followed this adv “In addition to Dr. ealf, cur o.iginal paity in , well known American ento- , and Dr. J. Jeswici, scientist, frem the Netherlands. Then, too, of course, we needed expert advice and guidance frem white men more or less familiar with the surrounding region. So for this purpose Dr. Brandes lected Iven Champion, trol officer and exploicr under the Ausiralian gov- ernment, and an American named Bannon, who kad spent at least two- score years in New Guinca. “Under the leadership of these two men some 30 natives of the coastal re- glons wére recruited to help us set up cemp and to serve as an armed force in cese of sudden sttack by the canni- bals, Our general plan was to send all ther> men ahead by pat.ol boat for the purpose of establishing living quarters for us in the interior in a section which might serve a central base of opera- tions. That done, the plarc would fol- low shortly thereafier, bearing Dr. B:‘;Lndcx, Jeswiet, Pemborton and my- self. and my- d C. W. “As it happened, the plan worked to| perfection. The advance party started | out ebout three weeks earlier than did | the seaplane, and managed to get tem- | porary quarters in good shape on a plot {of land in & jungle along the Fly River, |=ome 600 miles away from Port Mores- by. Our plane then flew to camp, ac- complishing the trip in just twice as many hours as the boat required weeks. * %k X luFomz days after arriving in camp, | . Brandes, Ivan Chempion myself, equipped with a couple of days’ provisions and armed with revolvers, ventured into the wilderness for our first meeting with the cannibalistic pygmies. “Because of the scarcity of good ful plans so ss.to find a river wide enough to permit proper landing ma- landing places, we made extremely care- | shortly 'ROM THE END NEAR “T: HELMETS AND SHELL ORNAM DR. E. W. BRAND GOVERNMENT SUGAR CANE EXPLORER, WITH SOME OF THE TROPHIES HE OBTAINED IN PYGMY LAND, LEFT TO RIGHT: A DRUM WITH ARMULET AROUND THE HANDLE; SHELL CURIOS, BAMBOO HELMET TO WARD OFF SPEARS; SPEARS AND PROTECTIVE STICKS. | neuvers of our seaplane. At the start | of our flight we figured that there might be a good-sized stream or so up the Alice River, about 300 miles from camp and near the hcadwaters of the Fly River. | “Now we were in the air, the three | members of our party taking turns at | using the binoculars. After flying for a couple of hours we saw abundant evi- dences of primitive habitation, which | convinced us that we were for certain |in pygmy land, since the crude struc- | tures were built in trces—a means of | protection against cnemy raids, we later | tound out. “A short while afierward we hovered above our original destination, the headwaters of the Fly. Whereupon, Dr. Brandes, above the terrific noise of the plane motor, bellowed, Shall we try a landing?” But I shook my head, for I found, to my extreme disappointment, that the streams at this point were far narrower than we had anticipated. So I turned the nose of my plane back again until I had returned to the junc- tion of the Fly and Alice. But here also the landing conditions looked nore too satisfactory, as there was visible below us a veritable gorge, extremely narrow, with swiftly swirling waters. “still again I shifted the plane's course, this time heading for the Palmer River, a branch of the Fly. Here there appeared to be really excellent streams for landing purposes, so I maneuvered about in the immediate region, finally signaling to Dr. Bramdes the intention of landing about five miles below the junction of the ¥Fly and Alice. He nodded assent. “Here was a wide section of water that was fairly smooth, so I experienced | no dificulty whatsoever in. making a clean landing about 100 yards from a village of three or four tree houses almost entirely obscured by the dense | Jungle. Once landed, however, and | having shut off my motor, I, of course, | turned the nose of the plane out from the village, so that in case of sudden attack we could take off in short order. “However, there was not now a single soul to be seen, though we had wit- nessed two canoe loads of human beings | before our landing. Yet none of us complained about being lonesome as we paddled toward shore. With our S AND PILOT T EN THE YELLOW 1 pistols strapped around our necks, we were maneuvering for a good defensive position if the cannibals heopened to be feeling playful and hungry. K MET AT BOLLI NE _CAME TO W “All at once, as we came abreast of a bank 10 feet high and some 60 feet long, our pontoons struck bottom, and there we stuck, the most valiant efforts |of our paddles to extricate the craft proving of no avail. There was but one | thing to attempt, and that was for |some one to get out, and, risking his “llfe in the waters known to be infested with man-eating crocodiles, try to push the plane away from shore. “Ivan Champion essayed to be the | man of destiny for this risky situation. Paddle in hand, he clambered over- board. At the outset he seemed to |achleve a fair enough footing, sinking only a few feet. But gradually his feet | fell ever deeper into the gray-black, | oozing_muck, until pretty soon he was 1l-nigh waist deep. Had any of the | cannibals appeared at tiis point with | murderous intent, then Champion must have perished straightway. But for- | tunately not & soul showed up, so we threw out a line to our -sinking com- | panion. pr. Brandes and I had to pull | with_every ounce of our strength before we finally managed to haul Champion into the plane. E $YV/E now knew, of course, how fool- ish it would be for any one else to try to extricate the craft from the | mud by means of wading maneuvers, so | cur only possible mode of safety lay in pushing against the bank and tugging ‘At our paddles with might ard main. i Having done these things for more than |an hour, our efforts Were rewarded and | we were able to shove the plane to a | far better position 100 yards or so down the river. “Stepping ashore without further mis- hap, we looked about us and saw an ex- tremely hilly jungle region filled with sugar cane and bamboo trees. The three tréé huts, about 100 yards from shore, constituted a masterful stroke of pygmy camouflage. They so blended into the wild scenery that they prob- ably never would be seen from midway in the stream and certainly would not have beep known even to us had we not been flyihg fairly close to ground in our efforts to find a good landing place. “For tlose to an hour we must have kept up a watchful vigil on the bank before even a single human being made bold to approach us. But meanwhile, | a few hundred yards Up the river, we were able to note, with the ald of our | loads of savages speeding across to what must be another native village. We discovered later that the cannibals were thus transporting their women folks for safety's sake. “Shortly thereafter two canoeloads of other, landed near our plane. They were very much excited, to say the least, evidently not knowing what to make of the seaplane, which they eyed with mingled fear and curiosity. But we were soon reassured as to the fact that their intentions were friendly enough, for when they drew near they |had nary a spear or bow and arrow, | these weapons having been placed in the canoes. “Now it was that we tried out the supposedly magic word, ‘Sambio," which the coastal natives at Fort Moresby had, assured us would make a favorable im- pression on the savages of the interior. Whether the word did us any genuine good I am not so sure. inclined to believe that the bright- colored pieces of calico that we waved | at them from time to time pleased them |far more. At all events, we all were | s0on on surprisingly friendly terms, and cxperienced no great difficulty in con- vincing them that we merely wanted to trade with them. “Just a few words about what these | cannibals looked like. Certainly they were pygmies, but not so very tiny at that, the men averaging some 5 feet 6 or 7 inches and the women a few inches less. They had the character- istic black skin and frizzly hair of the more civilized coastal tribes, though the latter was somewhat thinner and their heads, if anything, were broader shaped. Despite their small size, however, they were beautifully proportioned, with fine chests and well moldsd muscles. By and large, the little fellows wore not a stitch of clothing. * X x % FTER a few momenis of trading, Dr. Brandes felt convinced that he and Champion might risk a trip across the river to the neighboring vil- lage. Having made known this desire by sign language to the savages, my companions straightway were conveyed across in a native dugout. “ powerful binoculars, a couple of canoe- “The reason I cidn't - is obvious Flying Safety Assured by New Airplane Devices and Pilot Newly Formed “Crash Board" Will Seek the Truth in an Effort to Prove That Aviation Is Not Unsafe, by Smashing Reckless Pilot’s Alibi of “WITH A CRASH THE PLAN BY DONALD E. KEYHOE. - one' had the most nerve. a lanky barnstormer, suggested a con- clusive test. “We'll get a ship and put a spin. The first man who takes it out has to buy the other a dinner.” Ignoring the posaibility that might win, that neither would have to buy dinner, they went out to the near- | motor “in his lan,” 3 here was then no law | tified. But the other man onl rom flying | They spun cnce more, and at 200 feet kept them | the “pilot in front seized the control est airport. T in effect prohibiting pilots fi while intoxicated, and no one from taking off. At about 1,500 f=ct th barngtormer put the plane into a tigh! EVERAL years ago two pilots who | T her had imbibed a_trifie too freely . were boasting about their skill in fiying. A heated arghment soon | started over the question of which ' One of them, Brin E SHOT INTO THE WINDOW.” Drawings for this article by Clay! | tailspin,,and relessed the cont; G she goes, dizzily earthward | soing to hit for all of me.” hip 250 feet closer to the ging 1t out, ground. sticl resuliing dive. Iooked around anxiously. As vould his anxiety 2 | stick. L But he shouted, as they “4nd sh'e Fach_turn of the spin brought the by neutralizing the k" and possibly using opposite rud- der, would require several seconds, be- it into sides the time for leveling off after the | At 500 fest the pilot in the front cock- both | pit he hit firsi, probably getting the vas jus- grinned. e wal too late. The plane cams their p! out of The spin just as they reached the ground, hitting on one wing, tearing off the landing gear and ending upside down with & loud crash. Fortunately, neither man was hurt, and both weré sobered enough to realize how their story would sound. An accu- rate analysis would have labeled the | crash as the result of extreme reckless- ness. They did some quick thinking and the newspapers carried these headlines the following. morning: MYSTERY CRASH AT LOCAL ATRPORT Pilots Dazed as Plane Refuses to Answer Controls « There followed & graphic gecount of | how the plane had been fiying normally and suddenly had fallen into a spin | without warning, crashing after both pilots had tried every known way to re- sume straight flight.” It was hinted that | the control wires had jammed. - | Passenger flying at the airport and in the neighboring communities fell off as a result, for the public could not but look askance at craft which ex- | pert_pilots admitted they could not handle. UNDER the three general classifica- tions of airplane accidents—per- | sonal, weather, and mechanical or structural failure—this accident ob- | viously should have been listed as duz to personal causes, but the public ac- cepted it as mechanical failure of th. controls, mentally noting that disturl ing word “mysterious.” Had the fool-| hardiness of the two pllots been known | there probably would have been a public demend for restriction of such flying and the xesult of the crash would have | been helpful instead of harmful o) aviation. But the flying fraternity is naturally averse to bringing its mem- bers into trouble, and fow but the i alroort men kinew the truth. ™ is to determine the real causes of Gu. “mystery crashes” that the- Air- crafc A~cident Board of th» Depart- | ment of Commerce—popularly known a8 the “Crash Board"-—has recently been formed. All except minor crash:s will be carefully investigated by this board—and a thorough analysis wiil be made in each case to determins whether the fault is with the plane, the engine, maintenance, weather, or some other less recognized cause, The tendency to “alibi” out of an airplane aceldent will speedily be re- duced with Federal investigations at the scenes of accidents, opep hearings and precise mathematical deductions by experts. These men include skilled pilots, a flight surgeon, an aeronautics engineer an aeronautics lawyer and a statistician, all trained to look beyond the alibis of pilots desirous of covering up their faults or of operators seeking | to hide their negligence I’_mnnulnlnz lanes. £ * Kok % | | “Three Musketeer “Mechanical Ko the average newspaper reader an airplane crash is just another accident, regardless of the cause or the class of fiying in which it was engaged. It may have been an Army plane stunting at a dangerously low altitude to thrill a crowd, as in the case of the late Lieut. Willi: , leader of the “Three Mi Keteers” of the Army, Air Corps. The plane of this excellerit stunt flyer was caught in the sl am or region of disturbed air behifid a companion's ship. This threw it momentarily out | of control, and Lieut. Willlams was fatally injured in the resulting crash. The risk in_this case should be com« pared to that of a speedway automobil2 racer who takes extreme chances at hairpin turns on the race track. Deaths frequently occur in such races, but this | does not cause the average automo- bile owner to feel any hesitation about climbing into his car the next day. * ok Kk l}xPERIMENTAL work is another < phase of aviation which has its in- herent dangers; there is one more class of flying which obviously should be climinated from*any discussion of safety in aviation. This is transoceanic flight, which is still in the ploneering stage. Col Charles A. Lindbergh, who has participated in ail classes of flight, has repeatedly emphasized the difference be- tween commercial and other kinds of flying. “There is and will continue to be a certain hazard in military, test and pio- neering work,” he declared on one oc- fon when asked to help stop trans- oceanic flight attempts. “But in air transport, in which established lines are carefully operated on regular schedule, there is a high factor of safety.” Of Col. Lindborgh's 22,000-mile tour of the United States he followed a strict schedulé and demonstrated the possi- bilities of commercial aviation. During the National Air Races in Los Angeles last September, Col. Lindbergh took the late Lieut. William's place in loading the " through a series of startling maneuvers. At that time he was acting strictly as a military pilot, and he would have béen the last one to say that this kind of flying was per- { fectly safe, although naturally all pos- cible’ safety precautions were taken. In the early years of aviation there was little recklessness, for the airplanes used were unstable, clumsy and under- powered. Even when handled carefully they were none too safe. The pilots tenw nothing of stunting, and a tailspin was a thing to be dreaded—almost al- ways fatal. ‘This fear. hod been partly overcome before the World War, and by the end of the war stunting had become com- monplace, War-time flyers emerged from the struggle with a contempt. for straight flving, ant, as many of them purchased war surplus planes and start- aititude and ‘nd straight toward & ment of | increasing number of new pilots were Failure.” ed barnstorming, this attitude became typical of ‘commercial fiyers. Stunting, wing-walking, plane chang- ing, parachute drops and other_tricks were used to draw gaping crowds who were then invited to fly for a few dol lars a ride. Often those who accepted did so to appear like the “dare-devils” who piloted-the planes and not from any | strong sense of safety. But the barn- stormers succeeded in ‘making a living because of American daring, which fur- | nished enough passengers to take what | was then considered a great risk. Un- | fortunately this risk was not a myth, for as the war-time planes wore out the number of accidents increased. Then an buying Government surplus or even sec- ond-hand planes and carrying passen- gers after only a few hours’ of instruc- tion. Not infrequently this instruction had been obtained from pilots who them- gelves were little more than beginners. Sometimes students with a few hours’ instruction bought old planes which had been rebuilt after accident, painted them to cover signs of wear and then advertised “safe flying in good planes flown by expert pilo * A WAVE of accidents naturally fol- lowed. These were vaguely ascribed to air pockets, nose dives, tailspins, en- gine failure and planes mysteriously out of control. There was virtually no of ficlal investigation at that time, and in- experienced, reckless and unscrupulous pilots operating unsafe planes found it «asy to hide behind any story they chose to tell. If flyers were killed by their own carelessness or lack of knowledge a story “Veteran Pllot Killed” usually ap- peared the next day. There were many cases in which the already lessening public confidence in | airplanes was reduced to a minimum by | carelessness of pilots. One instance oc- curred at a city where several aviators had been invited to attend a fair. Some of them arrived m flving boats, landing | in the city harbor. The crews of all but one plane came ashore and drove several miles inland to wiiness some automobils | races, Hardly had the races begun when the last flying boat swooped down from the sky with a roar tochase the speeding cars at an altitude of about 50 feet. The nearest water was miles away; in | case of motor failure a crash would | | have been inevitable, Yet the pilots | spent ~10 minutes zooming over the | judge® stand, diving at the crowd and | otherwise impressing the citizens of that State with the, extreme peril and dare- devil nature of aviation. Another incident occurred at a train- ing station where a romantically in- clined pilot had a habit of paying an aerial visit each day to a girl. Every morning he would dive. down to a low * K . e | | Inevitable. | steeply on one wing. | ed for an orchard. Still both pilots re- window of the apartment hotel in which t she lived. With implicit trust in his| ability she would stand in the window and wave at him until collision 5etmedl ‘Then the pilot would haul | back gayly on the stick, zooming steeply | and climbing over the roof of the build- | Ing by a scant margin. | All went well for several days, but one morning the engine cut oit at the very second when it was most needed, | just before the soom. The pilot pulled back the stick desperately, hoping to clear the top, but he had lost too much speed. With a resounding crash the plane shot straight into a window on the top floor, tearing off both wings and thundering on into the apartment. | After tearing through parlor, bedroom | and bath, the wreckage came to & stop | with the dazed pilot still clutching the controls. Fortunately, he was unhurt, | and as there was nofone in that par-| ticular apartment there were no_cas ualties. But the story “Plane Div Into Buiiding” did not even touch upon the truth, and another black mark was | chalked up against aviation. * Kk kX Mer E recently a freak accident hap- pened which revived the old idea of mystery. Two expert pllots took off in the same plane for'a stunt hop. This was just before the law prohibiting stunting under 1500 feet. First one pilot put the ship through several ma- neuvers and then the other would try his hand, as there were controls in both cockpits. At 1,000 feet the man in front acci- dentally struck against the stick. This moved the stick in the rear. The second pilot, thinking he had been signaled. let go his controls. The plane nosed down and then began, to slide off | Each pilot, thinking the other had the controls, grinned to himself at this apparent attempt to scare him. A short distance from the ground the plane parjially righted itself and head- fused to show any fear, even when the wheels began to clip off the top branches of the trees. At last the ship plowed squarely into the top of a tree, tore through it and then somersaulted for 200 feet through smaller trees. ‘The pilots were only scratched, and both heatedly began to demand of each other the reason for this erratic per- formance. When they realized the truth, they hurriedly made up a story of strangely defective controls, and the Inevitable story was headlined in the local papers. Today the situation Is somewhat changed. The Depariment of Com- merce has taken over the sdicensing of mmu. pilots and mechanics engaged interstate commerce, the identifica- tion of all civil aireraft, the enforce- air traffic rules, and most re~ | " 100 L natives, 10 in the one boat and 5 in the | I am rather | | group to pose for me. | “I was having a right merry time, when, toward dusk, Dr. Bran and Champion returned, all safe and sound, | loaded down with goodly array of curios, including wild varieties of sugar cane and trinkets much like those I secured. Since the surrounding disc=.ct was extremely mountainous and we were none too familiar with it, there was but one procedure left for us, and | that, of course, was to remain in canni- {bal land overnight. This we did, Dr. | Brandes and Champion putting up & tent on the bank above the seaplane, while I snuggled overnight in the cabin of the craft. “Early the next morning we took off |again without the slightest interference | from the cannibals, though they experi- enced considerable terror when the en- | gine whirred noisily and the craft sailed ever higher in the air, “Needless to say, we were highly pleesed with our initial meeting with the pygmies. ~Without the slightest harm to ourselves we had met a primi- tive type of people entirely new to us, | traded with them and witnessed not a | few of their strange customs. As to | those, let me say a few words before I wind up my story. “Vhile the pygmies lived in the most | primitive sort of way imaginable, yet in_ certain respects they were equal to, if “not superfor to, their white cousins. With no chieftains at all to act as their theoretical heads, the younger men are, nevertheless, apparently ready and will- ing at all times to listen to the kindly advice of the older members of the tribe. “From the standpoint of adaptation | to nature, their mode of living is not so | bad. They raise certain wild vegetables, |like a tiny sweet potato with an excel- lent flavor, and make a crude bread ‘ou!tut a wild plant known as the ‘sago | root.” | “In each ome of the characteristic tree huts there live from two or four or five familles, each one in perfect accord with the other. In fact, I would be willing to say that these cannibalistic | pygmies, with all their barbaric repu- tation, impressed me as beng under- | neath the surface like so many good- | natured youngsters taking the keenes |kind of delight in new and stran® things.” Why Rubber? | Many of the things which boys ant | girls talk about every day have derivec their names in peculiar and interesting ways. Some of the commonest word: we use have a réal story behind them For example, take the word “rubber” —the stuff which is used for automobile tires and a thousand other _things. When it was first brought to England from India & little piece of it was given to an artist, who happened to rub it over a pencil line on one of his drawings. He noticed that it erased the line, and sald, “Why, look how well For many years-after that ing” out pencil marks was the only use for rubber. Along about 1847 a Scotchman dis- covered that rubber was waterproof This man's name was Macintosh, the inventor of the original rubber rain- coat, which is called a “mackintosh” tc this day. It was not until Goodyear made his discoverles that the real value of rub- ber was understood. Goodyear was al ways tinkering with rubber, trying t discover some way to harden it. Or day when he had a keitle of it on | stove he accidentally spilled some s | phur into it. ‘The sulphur harden~ or vuleanizad, the rubber and Goodye- had made th~ discovery which gave t! world enr ~f its most useful presen | 6ev materials, ONTROL STICK, AS AT | cently of all, the investigation of civil | alrcraft accidents. | Some pilots who were quite unfit %o | s esgecmly to carry passengers for re, ve been refused licenses an proof of their physical, mental or prc- tical disqualifications. Skilled inspec- tors test applicants, both for practical d theoretical knowledge. Inspectors also test and inspect planes. Medical examiners a| ted by the depart- ment determine whether pllots are physically fit for the various classcs of licenses. Even students who intend to take trnmlnf in licensed planes must b2 given physical examinations befors they can obtain permits. This i5 a good beginning, but it 13 far from a complete answer to the problem of, making civil aviation safs. The corpsof inspectors is necessarily small. and aviation is such a rapidly moving industry that it is difficult to keep pace with it. However, the worst feature of tne situation is that tness is a loophole through which unscrupu- lous operators and reckless or inexperi- enced pilots can escape. This is the Iack of State laws covering commercial flight within State borders. As long as a pilot has his plane identified, which consists only in seour- ing & number from the Department of Commerce; he can c: on passenger, sight-teeing and taxi ess withm the borders of a large number of States. Ko license is necessary for himself or his plané except in a few cases where States have iring Fed-