Diesel Day

Aeronautical eyes turned to Detroit this week, not so much for the All-American aircraft show there exhibited, as for six stock commercial airplanes there equipped with the 225 h. p., oil-burning Packard Diesel type engine. Largest of the six is a Ford all-metal transport, powered with three Packard Diesels in place of the Wright Whirlwinds customarily installed. Ford announced that Diesels would be optional equipment in future. So did Stinson Aircraft Corp. Chief virtues of the engine, which has been developed in the U. S. with considerable secrecy by Packard Motors Co.: low cost of fuel, reduction of fire hazard, elimination of ignition, and of radio interference. Capt. L. M. Woolson last month flew a Diesel-powered Stinson from Detroit to Miami, approximately 1,200 miles, on $8.50 worth of fuel. Of prime importance to airplane builders is the reduction of Diesel engine weights to compare with gasoline engines of equivalent horsepower. Ordinary Diesels weigh about 25 Ib. per horsepower. The Packard Diesel weighs 2.26 Ib. per horsepower. A Whirlwind weighs 1.75 Ib. per horsepower.

Another cynosure of the show: a new price-list by Fokker (affiliate of General Motors), showing reductions of from $4,000 to $13,000 on every type of plane (except the 32-passenger giant) to meet similar reductions recently announced by Stinson.

18 Years for Mechanics

Many an "unexplained" crash of aircraft might be traced to a loosened airfoil control, a weakened cable, faulty lubrication, dirty fuel. To blame: the mechanic. A fact: mechanics are frequently youngsters. An act: last week Clarence M. Young, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, ruled: "The minimum age requirement for any class of mechanic's license is 18 years . . . the lowest we can permit while keeping in mind the highly important part the mechanic plays in the safe operation of aircraft, and the need for constant vigilance.''

Rentschler v. Keys

If aviation were pugilism, an announcer would have cried last week:

"The main event, la-dees and gen-tul-men, is for supremacy in the Industry, with control of National Air Transport, Inc. as a sidepurse. Winner take all.

"In this corner, Clouting Clement Keys, pride of Curtiss-Wright, the present title holder.

"In that corner, Fighting Fred Rentschler, boss of United Aircraft, contender for the championship belt. . . ."

President Rentschler of United issued the challenge when he & his colleagues approached Clement Keys, also chairman of the executive committee of N. A. T. & his colleagues last month with a proposal to buy National Air Transport, an affiliate of Curtiss-Wright carrying mail between Chicago and New York, Chicago and Dallas. They offered one share of United for three and one-half shares of N. A. T. United wanted to hook up N. A. T. with its Boeing Air Transport (Chicago and San Francisco) to make a transcontinental line. The N. A. T. directors voted the offer totally inadequate, turned it down flat, refused even to submit it to their stockholders. Thereupon Mr. Rentschler and his directors voted to outflank the Curtiss-Wright-N. A. T. directorate if they could. They wrote letters to all N. A. T. stockholders, asked for proxies.

No man to fight sitting down, Mr. Keys also wrote the N. A. T. stockholders. A battle of proxies loomed this week in Wilmington, Del.

Icarus?

Rear Admiral William Adger Moffett, chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, occupied some of the spare time which all admirals are having at the London Naval Conference by cabling air-minded Senator Bingham of Connecticut last fortnight to suggest that the newly-discovered trans-Neptunian planet (TIME, March 24) be called Icarus. As all scholars recall, Icarus was the Greek myth-boy who flew too close to the sun on wax-affixed wings invented by his father Daedalus. The sun melted the wax and down plunged Icarus in the world's first crash due to wing trouble. Lest any think, because the new planet is not the closest planet to the sun but the farthest from it, that Icarus would be an unappropriate name, scholarly Senator Bingham last week explained the aptness of the suggestion to the U. S. Senate, as follows: "The story, save for its tragic ending, is singularly prophetic of the exploits of the Wright brothers and our flyers of the present day."

Arco Statement

Largest of aviation corporations in point of miles flown daily, The Aviation Corp. last week established what will probably stand as the largest loss in the industry for 1929. Simple losses from operations were only $871,766, but to that had to be added $871,245 for depreciation, $462,875 for expenses of the parent company, $382,456 for proportionate losses in Fairchild Aviation and Embry Riddle (controlled but not consolidated). $364,638 for special losses and expenses connected with Alaskan Airways. After subtracting $1,509,159 other income (interest earned, dividends, profit on securities sold), the loss for nine months was $1,443,822, or 47 cents a share.

To Fight an Ogre

No matter how disdainful of other hazards of flying, every pilot has a potent and abiding dread of Ice. The mail route over Hell's Stretch (Hadley Field, N. J.. to Cleveland) is dotted by the wrecks of the Ice Ogre's victims.* Pilots know that in moist atmosphere just below 32DEG ice will begin to form on the landing (frontal) edge of the wing, rapidly accumulating into a ridge rising inches above the camber. This formation radically deflects the rushing windstream away from the upper surface, destroys the efficiency of the wing./- The lift is lost. The pilot frantically "guns" his motor. Relentlessly, his ship is dragged down, down. . . .

Last week airmen everywhere, particularly operators of northern mail routes rejoiced at news from Cornell University that Drs. William Chauncey Geer and Merit Scott had perfected for airplane wings "overshoes" which had successfully eluded the grasp of the Ice Ogre.

The device consists of a vulcanized rubber casing to be laced to the leading edge of the wing and impregnated with an oil which resists the formation of ice. There the scientists were faced with the problem of composing an oil which would not only offer zero-adhesion, but would not be scrubbed away by the action of 100-mile winds and rain. Further to render the scrubbing action impossible, the oils are absorbed into thin sheets of vulcanized rubber which in turn exude the mixture.

But the Ogre has yet another weapon. The terrific force of his ally, the wind, against a plane in flight is sufficient to hold ice particles against the rubber by atmospheric pressure, although there is no actual adhesion. The ice will not remove itself. Ingeniously, the experimenters ran an air tube through the overshoe beneath the oil-holding layer. A flip of a small pump in the pilot's cockpit slightly inflates the tube, budging the ice, which is immediately blown away as the vacuum breaks.

Earlier researchers found that ordinary maple syrup afforded high resistance to ice; but was easily "scrubbed" off by the wind. Working along other lines, experimenters tried heating the wing edge by an extended exhaust pipe. They found ice would form behind the pipe nearly as heavily as along the edge.

Dr. Geer, onetime vice president in charge of development of B. F. Goodrich Co. of Akron, retired to realize his early ambition of scientific research.

Flights & Flyers

New York-Bermuda. "Any time there is a good ship, a good pilot and 48 hours notice, I will go." Such was the standing boast of Capt. Lewis A. Yancey, 17 years a seafarer, able navigator, last year co-hero with Pilot Roger Q. Williams on his trans-Atlantic flight to Rome (TIME, July 22). The place Capt. Yancey stood ready to fly to was one whither no man had ever flown from the U. S.--a 20 sq. mi. pinprick n the Atlantic, 580 mi. offshore--Bermuda. One little slip in navigating and a plane from shore would shoot by Bermuda out over the boundless wastes of the Atlantic.

Last week the good Stinson monoplane Pilot, the good Pilot William H. Alexander, and Radioman Zeh Bouck, were all ready. Capt. Yancey had much more than 48 hours notice. He got into the plane with them and off they flew. Night found them 60 mi. short of Bermuda over a glassy sea. They descended, floated the swells until dawn, got up again, reached Hamilton Harbor. Their prizes: $1,000 each; publicity for Richfield Oil Co. A sprained pontoon strut prevented their flying home. The significance: when an Armstrong Seadrome (TIME, Oct. 28) is anchored midway, and terminal facilities are improved, and Yancey's weather and course observations are collated, a New York-Bermuda week-end airline may be practicable.

Hawks's Glide. Out of a squally sky, down into The Bronx, N. Y., coasted Capt. Frank M. Hawks in his red cabin glider Texaco Eaglet (TIME, April 7). He had been towed by a power plane clear across the continent in six and a half days, had snapped the trigger release of his 500 ft. tow cable and glided down for rest at 21 airports. Always in telephone communication with the power plane's pilot, he had virtually acted as "brakeman" of the first transcontinental air "train." Plaudits were showered.

Tough Hombre. Rounding their 175th hour in the air--then a world record--one day last July over Culver City, Calif., Pilots Loren W. Mendell and Roland B. Reinhart refused to come down, dropped word that they were "tough hombres" (TIME, July 22). Among their rewards upon landing was a duplicate of the record-breaking plane, a $13,500 Buhl Airsedan which Tough Hombre Mendell subsequently bought in full from his copilot. Last week Mendell set his prize biplane down near a waiting automobile on the desert below Mexicali, border town. Out of the car piled Mexican customs officers and U. S. border police, dragging two Japanese who admitted the aviator was to have flown them across the border into California. The officers arrested Tough Hombre Mendell, confiscated his plane. He refused to name his confederates, said: "I'll take my medicine alone."

Two-Minute Owner. So delighted was D. H. Walsh of Providence, R. I., with the appearance of a shiny new plane circling over Pinebrook Field, N. J., that he straightway paid down $6,000 and became its owner. Two minutes later the proud smile of possession on Mr. Walsh's upturned face gave way to a horrified grimace. His ship dove to earth, was wrecked beyond repair.

*Nungesser & Coli and other would-be trans-Atlantic flyers, unheard of since their take-oft, are believed to have perished for the same cause.

/-Seven-tenths of the lifting power of the windstream is exerted upon the upper surface of the wing.

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