Busy Bunch

Since studious, balding Clare Bunch, 36, took over St. Louis' Monocoupe Corp. four years ago and found only $20 in the bank account, he has made things hum at that tidy little airplane factory. Oil-stained apostle of hard work, he slept in the plant, did all his own test-flying, worked with the factory hands when he was not busy at the drawing board improving the basic Monocoupe, a two-seated monoplane ($3,875), or designing a bigger two-engined job. Last week, with the bank account considerably more than $20, Clare Bunch lifted his nose from the grindstone and went out to publicize his planes.

With two ham sandwiches and a jug of coffee, he took off from Burbank, Calif. in one of his two-seaters, climbed his heavily loaded craft to 12,000 ft. and headed east. Averaging 30 miles to the gallon, he kept his Monocoupe on top of an overcast most of the way, kept himself on the course by listening to range stations on a small radio receiver. When he landed at Roosevelt Field, N. Y. next day, tired and chilled, he had set a new transcontinental light-plane record: 23 hours and 26 minutes, an average of 110 m.p.h. Cost of the trip, exclusive of sandwiches, coffee and depreciation: $27.15. Result: a fat sheaf of inquiries from pilots, to some of whom Monocoupe hopes to sell airplanes. Said satisfied Mr. Bunch: "I made the flight for my own satisfaction."

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