Flights & Flyers

Land of the Soviets, Russian world flying plane, reached Detroit last week with its four operators. They started, on their second attempt, from Moscow Aug. 23, flew across Siberia to the Aleutian Islands (U. S.), to the Alaskan mainland, down the Pacific Coast to Seattle, to San Francisco, then overland to Chicago, Detroit.

False Lindbergh Book. Some foolish crook took the pains to write a book titled We Fly and, purporting to represent Col. Lindbergh, tried to sell it to Dorrance & Co., Philadelphia publishers, as his work. The attempted fraud was uncovered last week when George Palmer Putnam, New York publisher of Col. Lindbergh's We, asked Lindbergh if he had changed publishers. He declared that he had written no other book, had no intention of writing one.

Tailless Plane. A triangular shaped "stork" plane, lacking conventional tail structure, flew 78 m.p.h. with a 8-h.p. motor, at Berlin. Its constructor, Alexander Lippisch, thus approximated the flying goal of an all-wing ship.

Hushed Accidents. The U. S. Senate last week ordered Secretary of Commerce Lament to make public the report of every air accident, something the Secretary had refused to do for fear of shaking public confidence in aviation, of marring the reputation of operating companies, of making his Department subject to damage suits.

Pirate Plane. On the Black Sea a pirate ship is using a seaplane to locate prey. Thus was the Greek steamer Euripides spotted last week and robbed.

Ford Tour. Two dozen of the 29 planes which started the 4,800-mi. National Air Reliability Tour of 1929 at Detroit, reached their Detroit goal in a heavy rain last week. Winner of the Edsel Ford Trophy and $2,500 cash was swarthy John Henry Livingston, 31, of Aurora, III, who flew a Wright-motored Waco biplane. Runner-up planes were (in order) : Waco, Ford, Curtiss Condor, Bellanca, Bellanca, Command-Aire, Kreider-Reisner, Spartan, Ford. Although losers yammered about the method of scoring, the Tour did disclose the characteristics of the planes in quick takeoffs, slow landings, load-carrying and other factors useful to commercial aviation.