Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1930, Page 73

Model Aircraft BY GEORGE I ‘W. WATERS. F O Sol doesn’t weaken within the next two or three weeks and allow Brrrr Winter to throw a few more snowballs, model-plane pilots will cast aside cumbersome overcoats and et out in the gren open spaces of Bolling Field, where model flying is model The flrst outdoor meet of the season is scheduled for March 29 at Bolling Field, beginning at 9 o'clock in the morning. The contest will be the first of the preliminaries for the 1930 tournament. Pilots Show Improvement. Throughout the Winter meets, | the young pilots have shown re- | tion, says, | more and more active, and now | has many members registered in markable improvement in both the building of more intricate models and the flying of their shi, Records have been broken new ones established. But there has been a holdback. And that holdback comes in the form of ceilings, walls, electric fix- tures and the crowds that swamp the indoor flying fields. Local boys have done most of their fly- ing at the Macfarland Junior High School auditorium. Crashes are frequent, lowering the dura- tion of flights So plane pilots of the District will welcome the first outdoor contest, when each one of them| will be reclassified. Registrations for 1930 must be in before a pilot will be eligible for the awards of this year’s tournament. The new classification follows: Class D, five seconds to qualify; Class C, 30 seconds; Class B, one minute 30| seconds, and Class A, three mln~‘ utes. Aces may get the rating of | silver ace for special achievement. The citation will be awarded by | the advisory board of the District Model Aircraft League, under whose auspices the contests are being held. Models To Be Flown. At the outdoor meet models to be flown for qualificatibn are hand-launched - scientific and gliders for duratiop. The next meet to be held by the D. C. M. A. L. will get under way at 9:30 o’'clock on the morn- ing of March 22, at the Marfar- land miniature airdrome. Hand- launched scientific, helicopters and (r. 0. w.) seaplsne models will be flown. For those who have recently taken up model flying, here's the definition of a seaplane. This plane must be able to take off from land or water under its own power at the beginning of the flight. It also must be able to Dana Garfield, in his report to Plane Talk, the District Model Alrcraft League's oficial publica- “The club is becoming the D. C. M. A. L. The boys are encouraged to bring their models to school for construction, in order to get the suggestions and help of experienced builders. Now that Miss Moore and Mr. Willlams are at Powell, we expect to do big things.” Chevy Chase Club. John Magnusson, the Plane Talk’s Chevy Chase Aero Club re- porter, says, “The glider which the club has been working on so faithfully for the past year is ex- pected to be finished by Easter. At the last meeting, held at Louis Dawson’s, it was decided-to give another play to increase funds in the treasury. The min- strel show given last year was suc- cessful and a big boost. “We make our threats early in the season to retain the cham- pionship of the District, since we h;;ve plenty of opposition to offer.” Other Reports Follow. Reports from other clubs pub- lished in the Plane Talk follow: “There has been much interest shown by the club at the Wheat- ley School and a number of its members are already registered with the league. They expect to become recognized at the next meeting of the advisory board, so that the other clubs better look to their Jaurels. - “Blair Bennett and Harry Mec- Ginniss tell us that they are start- ing a club at the new Adams School, too. “And now Western High comes forward with the Western High Aero Club. No officers have been elected, but several meetings have been held and many of the mem- bers belong to the D. C. M. A. L. At the last meeting Frank Salis- THE SUNDAY BROWN SEES NEED FOR REVISED RATE { Declares Bill Pending in Con- gress Will Aid Aviation inU. 8. What has been termed by postal offi- clals “the most progressive piece of legislation for commercial aviation” ever sent to Congress—the bill sponsored by Postmaster General Walter F. Brown for the revision of airmail contract rates—now is pending before the House cmndr“nuwe on post offices and post ron There are many reasons behind the request of the Postmaster General for a change in the existing law, he has stated. The present law governing air- mail rates, the designation of routes and the manner of awarding contracts, Mr. Brown has told Congress, “is the result of evolution” and is far from being a solution of the problems which have arisen in connection with the carrying of the mail by air. The present law, he stated, does not admit of uniformity of compensation paid to the various contractors where the compensation is based on weight alone, without regard to distance flown. As an_example, he pointed out that while the rat¢ from New York to Boston is $3 a pound, that from Chicago to Atlanta is only 76 cents a pound. One of the faults of the pruent law, he said, is that it creates an induce- ment to the contractor to swell the volume of airmail he carrief’ by un- ethical practices, though he hastened to add that the Post Office Department, generally speaking, has no criticism to contractors. Ploneers Need Relief. The new bill is necessary, according to Mr. Brown, to give relief to ploneer airmail contractors who are losing money under the ‘Irmnt system. The present law provides that the rates of comlpennflon for the carrying of air- mail may be revised downward only and there is no method open to the depart- ment to give relief to operators whose rate is so low or whose volume of mail is 80 low that under the present rates they must lose money. It is the purpose of the Government to stimulate aviation, Mr. Brown said, and this cannot be done effectively under existing airmail legislation. It was the hope of the department that the awarding of postal contracts for the carrying of the mail by air would aid in the creation of passenger transe rt service. Faults in the present laws, owever, make it impossible for the de- partment to aid organized air transport companies to the best advantage, he pointed out. ‘The department must have some such bury gave an interesting talk on float on water on its own pon- the senior R. O. G. and a demon- toons with the motor unwound. AIRPLANES INU.S. LISTED PER CAPITA! Report Shows One Licensed Machine for Every 19,800 of the Population. ‘There is one ‘Mcensed or identified airplane for every 19,800 persons in the United States today, according to & report by the Washington buregu of the Aeronautical Chamber of Com- merce. The reports show that there ‘were 9,740 licensed and identified planes on January 15, of which 6,645 were licensed planes in actual operation and uws were identified planes in private m every airplane this eoumry there are 2,977 nmnmobllu. the report shows. The t also shows that there are 1463 gnized airports and 791 aircraft rs in the country. California Leads the List. stration in the auditorium.” Boosts Gliding - Only N who sdvecates p Colifornia, leads the country in the e e e e e viaes umber of licensed and identified air- |, gor pilots. He will discuss eraft with 1,237 planes. New York, gliding, including hie famous with 1,160 planes, is the only other flight 'to the ground the Navy G Sy s ik | o o ever, New York {8 in the lead with 985, | In§ °f, the Standards Fiying Club at 8 as compared with California’s 875. P i o inole: 128; '3§.s"“'§‘-?f ; ‘fi&?‘?fi' al H lo, b 8y Vll'l 434 Fioma, 332, Neyada. Wi ogiy 7 eonsed| ON GLIDING AND SOARING and identified planes is at the bottom of the list. California also leads the emlnt;y in the number of airports with 154, Texas has the second largest number of air- ports, 101. Other States in the 10 high- est are: Pennsylvania, 85; Ohio, 76; Il- linois, 67; New York, 56; Oklahoma, 50; ‘Wisconsin, 45; Michigan, 45; Iowa, 45, and Florida, 41, Aircraft Distributors Listed. California_further leads the country in the number of aircraft distributors | with a total of 66. This is almost dou- |- ble that of any other State, Pennsyl- vania having the next highest total, 38. Land biplanes lead all types of aircraft | in use in the United States today, with | 4,349 ships of that type in operation. The report also lists 1,816 land mono- phnes and 465 amphibians and sea- lanes. Planes included in the report are only tommercial aircraft, no listing of serv- ice ships having been made, "NEW AVIATION AID DEEMED SUCCESS| All-Metal “Flying Wing” Showing | Speed in Tryout in California, BURBANK, Calif. (#).—A new trend in aircraft design is forecast in suc- cessful flights of America’s first all- metal “flying wing.” An experimental model, without fu- selage, the cockpit in the wing and an engine of “pusher” type, has been given secret tests by the Northrop Afrcraft corporation. The odd ship, designed by John K. Northrop and W. K. Jay, has performed at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour with a 60-horsepower motor. As a result of the tests, engineers predict passenger transports cruising at 160 miles an hour and mail-express planes with high speeds, in excess of 200 miles an hour. Research work covering more than a year, with additional test flights and a series of wind-tunnel experiments, will be undertaken before the siip will be hum commercially. The landing gear is retractable and composed of three wheels, forming a triangle. ont wheels are placed far forward to guard against nosing over. and the rear wheel is steerable for ground maneuverability. Air Society Honors American. ANN ARBOR, Mich. (#).—Prof. F. W. Ptvlunkl o( thn Unlvermy of Michigan has been elected l er uu mu Mronluwul So- the fln t Ameri~ Navy Pilot Will Address Flying Club in Absence of Dr. Dryden Tuesday Evening. ‘There will be a break this week in a series of Tuesday lectures by Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, chief of the aerodynamics section of the Bureau of Standards be- fore the Standards Flying Club, 8o that Lieut. Ralph S. Barnaby, the only | Navy glider pilot, may address the club | on gliding and soaring. The public is invited to Lieut. Barnaby's lecture, which will be given at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the east building of the bureau, Con- necticut avenue and Van Ness street. Members of the flying club, which is composed of officials and employes of the Bureau of Standards, now are con- structing a primary type clkl!r, wmch ;lllmbe used for training flights ring. Dr Dryden will complete his lecture series at Tuesday evening meetings of the club March 25 and April 1 and 8. The first of these lectures will be de- voted to “the propertiés of airfoil sec- tions, including the effects of shapes o section, aspect ratio, monoplane and | biplane arrangements, etc.”; the second to “the problems of control and sta- bility” and the third to “the airplane propeller.” FLYER AND AIRPLANE HOLD REUNION IN AIR Maj. Burwell Meets “Old Friend” at Altitude of 3,000 Feet in Baltimore Area. Friends of Maj. Paul V. Burwell, one of the organizers of the Air Corps unit of the Maryland National Guard and now chief of operations for the Long York, tell of a reunion held by the major and an old friend 3,000 feet over h%lmmore M e le overseas during the war Ma. Burwell flew what then was one of the fastest combat airplanes in existence, & British SE-5, When the war was over he returned to Baltimore and aided in organizing the Guard unit. When the unit was given official recognition the War Department sent some airplanes to equip it. One of them was an SE-5 and its log book showed records of fll(h'-l made m Eng- land and Prance signed by Paul V. Bur- well, then a lieutenant. The reunion was celebrated at 3,000 feet with every maneuver known to combat !lyl.n:. ane Air Lmel in l’erm. Persia, has 25 !Anu.uu fl:ldl Plve n He is ean w '“S’:"?mow'sw in'the orgaui- mhflrunfl Aacross Island Aviation Country Club, Nt legislation as that contained in the new bill if it is to aid the passenger lines in carrying on until the public is educated to travel by air, Mr, Brown told the House committee. The principal motive in back of his bill, he said, “is to promote directly the major purpose of all the legislation of our country with respect to air trans- portation, to go right to the very heart m ‘matter, w’engunge 't:e tnm‘ - n of e by a get the people of the m States to fly them- umlm. 80 thnlt wed will ha:cnn mdfl’. personnel and a great = us- try with dflmfi planes and efficient equipm Wnn\- U. S. Supreme in Air, Fiht the te purpose le:uhuon tor the promotion of avia- thu tion is to give our pnphmm& uo‘?lc o: eountry, supremacy e air ant that involves building a national air industry and training a national air personnel, and femnl the people of the country themselves into the habit, and practice of tr-mporun; themselves by air.” One feature of the bill, Mr. Brown sald, would enable the passenger trans- port lines to build up passenger service on routes that sppear to be essential, what he krmi “natural routes of nu—ou;n judicious awarding of airmail contracts’ at uniformly equitable rates. This may make necessary an increase in the airmail postage rate, he said, but an:c‘h an increase he believes is justi- The bill was highly praised as a po- tential aid to air commerce in this coun- try by W, Irving Glover, Second Assist- ter General, hls testi- mony before the Ha\lu Ptmnflly Mr. Glover dechnd & Sommmercial Soation i this countsy.” ‘The terms o! the bill have been ap- proved by representatives of leading air transport organizations who have appeared before the House committee, among them Mrs, Mabel Walker Wille- brandt, former Assistant Attorney Gen- eral, and now counsel for the Aviation Corporation; Col. Paul Henderson, for- mer Second Assistant Postmaster Gen- eral in charge of airmail, now an ex- ecutive of the Aviation Corporation; Wwilliam P. MacCracken, jr., former As- sistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, who appeared for Western Air Express; P. G. Johnson, president of Boeing Air Transport and Pacific Air Transport, and James F. J. Fairchild of Pickwick Airways. Airmail Held Aviation Backbone. “It has always been our feeling,” Mr. MacCracken told the committee, “that the airmail is the backbone of commer- cial aviation in this country. But at the present time unless some such legisla- tion as has been proposed by the Post- master General and considered by the committee is enacted, I believe as far as alr tnnlfiort is concerned in this country it will be confined exclusively to airmail.” ‘The Postmaster General's bill was in- troduced in the House by Representative ‘Watres of Pennsylvania, a member of the committee before which the measure was pending, owing to the fact that Representatives Kelly of Pennsylvania, known as “the father of airmail legisla- tion,” was busy on other matters at the time, it was explained by supporters of the bill. Mr. Kelly, however, has been in conference with postal officials on the measure and is understood to be a sup- porter of the bill. bill. 19 RECEIVEHS ORDERED FOR ARMY FLYING USE Signal Corps Sets Provide Phone Connection—Ajireraft Machine Guns Increased. Each Natifonal Guard Observation Squadron in the country is to receive one of the new Signal Corps SCR-136 radio ur.s, developed by the Army for und to plane communication. Maj. n. Willlam G. Everson, chief of the Militia Bureau, has placed orders with the Signal Corps for 19 of the sets. These sets are the latest type de- veloped for military use and provide communication by means of radio tele- phone, tone-modulated telegraph and undamped or continuous wave tele- graph. The sets operate in a frequency Iuaul of 30! to 860 kilocycles, or 390 to 900 mel Everson also has issued instruc- tions for the allotment of 11 additional Browning aircraft machine guns National Guard Observation Squadrons to teplace the present Lewis machine- gun equlpment‘ ' Italy Inemui Air Budget. ROME (/) —Italy's aviation bus for Illo-!l cllll for an outlay of $37, of almost & million 790, unlhnommwtym onmuom and | $6,538,550 goes toward civil aviation, mmummmmmm,p., ummmm make of the practices of the airmail | STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 16, FINDS SENSES UNRELIABLE The officer in the chair, with his face stuck in the opening of the famous “Ocker box," is finding just how deceptive one's senses can be. Pilots are put in the chair, which is whirled in either direction at varying speeds. Invariably the subject discovers that his senses fail to tell him what is happening and that he must rely upon the airplane instruments in the box to know what is happening to his body. This is supposed to be valuable preparation for “blind flying.” ARRIVAL OF AIRPLANES ENDS ISOLATION OF DEATH VALLEY i 2 to 3 feet thick, over a lake of brins at least 90 feet deep. Death Valley was the center of borax production in the United States for many years until other great borate deposits more accessible to transporta- tion were found. By air it is about 150 miles from Los FURNACE CREEK, Calif. (#).—One of the last of the West's weird barriers has fallen before flying man. Death Valley has been subdued by the airplane. Aviation has placed the once dread and forsaken poison sink of the desert Angeles, over uninhabited desert coun- ‘West at the beck of the tourist, a pleas- |try. The airroute selected is consider- ure journey between breakfast lndkably longer, following the Los Angeles- Junch, with weekly air transport serv-| Salt Lake City airmail airway to Baker, ice from the Pacific Coast. on the Mohave Desert, thence swinging The bed of the major or lower part | north over 90 miles of wilderness, un- of Death Valley is virtually a bed of | marked by tree or water, to Furnace t, merely a crust, however, some | Creek. .jupon to take him through fog or storms | 1930—PART FOUR. BlINI] FLYING NEED SHOWN BY DEVICE Capt. Ocker Proves Pilot’s Senses Insufficient in Fog. One of the important points in the training of an airplane p\\ggm many of the most modern schools is to teach him that his senses cannot be relied ‘when he cannot see the ground and that if he is to get through safely he must learn to rely upon his instru- % system wh system which is intended to impress the truth of this failing of the hu‘;nln senses upon the pilot and the pros- pective pilot has been devised by Capt. Willi. m C. Ocker, Army Air Corps, now on duty at Brooks Field, Tex., and dem- onstrations which have been made to military and commercial pilots, it is sald, have gone a long way toward showing the need for “blind flying” training for all aviators. Younger Pllots Interested, ‘The younger pilots show more inter- est in the device than the old-timers, Capt. Ocker has reported in a letter to friends here. Some of the younger pllots, he sal have become interested fo such an extent that in a few cases “they would practically bootleg this in- struction,” Capt. Ocker wrote. Capt. Ocker's device consists of a whirling chair and a closed box, with an opening in the side, into which the candidate's face fits. In the box are aviation instruments similar to those found on an airplane instrument | board. When the chair is spun fast and slow, stopped and reversed, the subject's senses in every case fail to tell him Jjust what is happening, the tests show, and it is only by consultation with the instruments that he is able to know whether he is being revolved or is stand- ing still. The Ocker device is one of the only three out of 3,600 claims for an award on inventions and devices considered favorably by the patent and design and the national advisory com- mittee for aeronautics, he stated. Capt. Ocker has a report from Lieut. George W. Hansen, Army Air Corps, which shows how unreliable a pllot's senses can be when he is caught in a one of the principal reasons for the creation of his device. Lieut. Hansen stated that he was caught in a dense fog while flying from Brooks Field while a student in the pri- mary flying school. He began climb- ing to avold striking objects on the ground and to rise above the fog. The fog and clouds became thicker, however, and it began to rain. “At an altitude of 4,000 fee he G LIt | stopped spinning to the right. Shortly | 1 was literally ‘glued’ in. With my hands plane had evidently come out of the spin | wrote, “it seemed that all of & sudden T| com] lost my sense of balance and I didn't know whether I was on one side or the er, {mu up or down or bot« tom side up. I probably pulled the ship up into a etall, !nt my next sensation was that of spinning to the right. I at- tempted to bring it out, but at no time could I bring it back to ‘Where it felt like I knew what position I was in, except that for a moment it seemed I had afterward, however, it seemed the plane | was again spinning to the right. “I could not see the altimeter cleatly, but noted then thlt it read about M féet. Of one thing I was certain, and that was that I had lost t00 much alti- tude too soon. I could not see the ground so decided that the safest thing to do was to jump. I cut the motor and mechanically applied left control to bring the ship out of the right spin I thought I was in. When I tried to rise up and jump over the side I found that on the sides of the cockpit I raised my- self from the seat, got both feet up on the cowling and pushed myself over- board on the right side of the Shlg. I fell head first and as soon as I fell clear of the ship pulled the rip cord. I saw the chute trail out and felt it pop open, but I do not remember hitting the round. It seemed only a few seconds f-ur I was lying on the ground afraid to try to move for fear I had some broken bones, but luckily I was unhurt. The plane fell in the only vacant block in the neighborhood in the center of | Highland Park resident district, about | 100 yards from where I landed. The | (if it were in one for it cut s swath| through the mesquite for about 200 feet before it stopped, a 100 per cent wash- out. Witnesses Described Peril. Lieut. Hansen said that he talked with eyewitnesses of the crash, who said they first saw the plane at a height of about 200 feet, descending in a spiral.to the left and Hansen falling from the ship with his parachute not yet opened. ‘The parachute opened just before he hit the ground and he landed on the dov&'n swing of the first oscillation, l,h!yl P! Describing his mental distress over the accident caused b{ fear that he was | “deficient in the physical makeup of the | aviator,” Lieut Hansen stated that after the experience fog flylng was more a mystery to him than ever. He was not assured that his reactions were normal and common to most pilots until he was given & whirl in Capt. Ocker’s chair and was told that no one’s senses were reli- able indicators. Now he is convinced, he wrote, that reliance must be placed upon instruments to get out of fog safely. Two New Land-Sea Airports. JUNEAU, Alaska (#).—Wrangell and Petersburg will bulld hydroplane land- ing ports this year, modeled - after Ketchikan's land and sea airport. The two communities will expend $16,000. | The War Department has authorized a similar airport for Juneau. —— 17 Lines in Latin America. | Regular air services in Latin America are operated by 17 companies, with lines totaling 34,951 miles. Mall, W- sengers and express are handled. AIRMAIL SERVICE 10 BE EXPANDED Lighting of Airports Makes Extra Run Possible From Miami. Further expansion of airmail facili- ties on the Eastern Air Transport line, operating through the National Capital from New York to Atlanta and Miami, is scheduled for May 1 as a result of the completion of night lighting on the airway between Atlanta and Miami, the Post Office Department has announced. On that date service will be doubled over the entire coastal line, two planes operating each way dally on regular schedule. Between this city and New York the present shuttle service will be continued, giving three plane move- ments daily in each direction. Use Many Double-Headers. “Double-headers” have been in opera- tion many times during recent months because of mallings too heavy for a single plane to handle. The second sec- tions in these cases, however, usually have followed the scheduled plane at fairly close intervals, The planes which have just been added to the schedule arrive in the National Capital at 5:15 p.m. south- bound, and about 7:30 a.m. northbound. Under the new schedule planes will leave New York daily at 5 am. and 3 and 9:10 p.m. arriving here at 7:10 am. and, 5:15 and 11:25 p.m. The plane leaving New York at 5 a.m. is the regular shuttle plane, which picks uj mail from the transcontinental airmail line for delivery at Philadelphia, Balti- more and Washington, Northbound planes will leave this city at 2:50 and 7:20 am. and 6:50 p.m., the evening plane being the reguiar shuttle plane which picks up after- noon mailings aboard the transcontinental mail planes for Western deliveries the following morning. ‘The new schedule is timed so as to augment the international contract mail service over in-American Airways System from Mhml to the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and South America and to make overnight deliv- eries possible between New York and Miami. AVIATION NEEDS AIRCRAFT DRAFTSMEN COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF DRAFTING Enroll any time—Day and lvnlu Cl.uu:. 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