Flights & Flyers

Graf Zeppelin, Again. The gorilla and the chimpanzee were glum, the 600 canaries fidgety, the 19 passengers restless, the imprisoned stowaway morose--aboard the Graf Zeppelin as she rushed across the Atlantic last week on the second transoceanic commercial air voyage. She reached Lakehurst, N. J., from Friedrichshafen, at the German-Swiss border in 95 hrs., 23 mins. without trouble, having averaged 60 miles an hour during most of the trip,--about twice as fast as the S. S. Bremen. Passengers, after an agreeably brief customs and immigration inspection, gloated over the relative uniqueness of their air travel.

There were discomforts aboard--pro-hibition against smoking because of the inflammable hydrogen which kept the Graf Zeppelin afloat, restricted space for exercise, the petty distraction of cards and parlor games. An indication of the passengers' boredom was their excitement at seeing a pair of whales. After two or three days in Lakehurst the Graf Zeppelin was to return to Germany and thence continue on for a world flight by way of Tokyo, Los Angeles, Lakehurst (again) to Friedrichshafen (again). On the Pacific leg she will fly cautiously near land, north up the Japanese coast, then eastward along the Aleutian Islands, then southward along the North American coast. The Atlantic crossing will be fairly direct to Europe as it was last week, as it was last October (TIME, Oct. 22). The Graf Zeppelin will carry mail from Lakehurst around the world to Los Angeles for $3.55 an ounce.

420 hr., 21 min., 30 sec. Dale Jackson and Forest O'Brine, St. Louis endurance flyers (TIME, Aug. 5), "hated to land," but they did, after 420 hr., 21 min., 30 sec., i.e., 17? days in the air. Rewards: $31,255 prize money, $2,756 cash gifts, cheers from a reception crowd of 15,000, kisses from their wives. The utility of their long flight was debatable. They did display the stamina of their Curtiss-Challenger engine and they did strengthen public confidence in flying. Otherwise they accomplished nothing that had not been indicated by previous endurance flights. By operating their motor at low speed they kept it in long life. But that flying method does not help plane owners who must run their engines at high speed to travel from point to point.

Franco Singed. Spain's dictator Primo de Rivera wept when Major Ramon Franco, balked transatlantic flyer, was found (TIME, July 8). He praised the flyer on his gay return to Spain. Last week he singed his wings, dismissed him from the Spanish flying service, returned him to the infantry--because Major Franco used an Italian plane and French meteorological information for his flight.

Duchess of Flights. Intimates of Mary du Cauroy, 63, Duchess of Bedford, received her telegrams one morning last week: "Off for India. Expect to be back in a week." By the time recipients had their word from this "duchess of flights," she had packed eight small suitcases into her Fokker and with pilot and mechanic was on her 10,000-mile way from Folkestone, Eng., to Karachi, India. Last year she attempted the same trip in the same plane, but was forced down at Bushire on the Persian Gulf. Flying is the Duchess' avocation. Professionally she is an electro-physicist of repute, and once loved to chase eagles among mountain crags.

Spunky Plunkett. George Bernard Shaw, 73, Irish playwright, warned Sir Horace Plunkett, 74, Irish statesman: "Flying at your age is adventurous, agree able and not too obvious a method of sui cide." Nonetheless Sir Horace, spunky, and not caring "what Mr. Shaw says," went on learning to fly. Last week he boasted meticulously: "Already I have flown four hours and 35 minutes. I find it very enjoyable."

Indiscreet Passengers. As Joseph Bogan was landing his taxi plane at Chicago with one hand, last week, he kept bashing at his two passengers with a fire extinguisher in the other hand. Reason: The passengers tried to take control from him. in mid-air because he would not stunt them. Police arrested them for disorderly conduct.

Lindbergh Trail. Pan-American Air ways last week disclosed a hidden part of the trail which Charles Augustus Lindbergh has been making in American aviation. Last February after he had flown a Pan-American mail plane from Havana to Panama, he was four hours late returning to Havana. Newspapers throughout the world screamed his "disappearance," presumed an accident. Actually he had been flitting over the liltingly named Mexican province of Quintana Roo, where fortuitously he made America's first archeological discovery from the air--a Mayan temple in a jungle. The sight awed him, made him want to return to explore in detail.