Show IL theair problems demand thought government overn ment faces difficult puzzle science Out speeds lane ane production f by EARL GODWIN T T r ASHINGTON avia t i 0 n A problems face the admin adain Y V flying for peace or for war presents in creasing puzzles basic problem is khe fact that the science of avia yo won goes ahead as rapidly as the planes themselves even a giant tk t government in seven league boots afoot on the ground cannot keep up ti congress convening january 5 will chave have to give a hand and dig deep cinto sinto treasury pockets to help I 1 d wonder if the same old economy li wave ave which has thus far retarded k american rican aviation will again pre I 1 vail 73 h y take peacetime peace time commercial fly necessarily the government almust r regulate these flying ships laa which span continents in a day and lane phase of the aviation problem edis the fact that the art science mg rause use and business of flying expands edmore amore rapidly than uncle sam can gt expand his regulations liis his tests and his air police for safety purposes TI ain one year the department of com amerce appropriation for aviation 4 development and regulation increased la 60 per cent while aviation lA itself increased 30 per cent this government is not only putting thought into the worldwide world wide as of flying but is trying out every experiment for cheap flying I 1 lit it is getting behind the idea of simple r safe planes for personal use ci asas as well as taking a hand in the deij sign of the new flying hot hotels als which 1 across 4 cross from new york to san frantic cisco I 1 have seen an experimental emplane which had the characteristics in of a low priced motor car for in instance IX J stance you flew the plane as 4 though you were handling an automobile it is foolproof fool proof cheap and vasy easy an eleven year old boy could fly by one and an eleven year old boy did fly one while I 1 looked on it is a plane which could be manufactured at the rate of a thousand a at a day but what about landing fields ilk and parking space in a country 4 where the chief trouble is described as finding a place to park your car there would be added landing field problems if cheap planes became numerous landing fields then constitute one of the problems for the department of commerce under assistant secretary J M johnson and eugene vidal director of air commerce I 1 saw also fly into washington and land on a two acre grass plot between the treasury and the de apartment part ment of commerce a flying d machine which was equipped with two sets of propellers one to lift the machine straight in the air from I 1 the ground another for flying when i f aloft this strange device dived down into the little park by crowded qed pennsylvania avenue folded its 7 wings back like a huge grasshopper and went down pennsylvania A avenue as an automobile ten years ago it would have been called the i dream of a crazy inventor today it 4 is being considered by the department de part I 1 J of commerce which is interested i in the development of a motor i car to take you from your house to the landing field from which you will fly until time to come down again and motor along the road again I 1 saw corns come into washington only a few days ago the fastest and safest and most luxurious plane ever built it could carry a crew and a half a dozen passengers a distance of a thousand miles before lt it need alight alighi for gasoline it could go that full route at the rate of miles an hour 33 miles an hour faster than the fastest of these huge flying hotels which now c ross cross the pacific it is equipped with electrical warming devices to keep the dreaded sleet and snow from burdening the wings and a two way radio telephone apparatus permits the pilot to converse with his airports constantly if necessary other radio devices keep the ship from being lost radio compasses which find the ships way through a fog it is the last word in design for great commercial flying ships making previous efforts out of date and is being used as a flying laboratory it seems to be perfect and yet at the rate the designers are going r have no doubt it too will be obsolete by summer A few days after this great airplane appeared here the smithsonian institution exhibited the plane which flew across the continent twenty five years ago that first trip took 84 days and had 15 serious crack ups between new york and california A railroad train followed it carrying extra parts and when the plane arrived on the west coast au all that was left of the original was the rudder and parts of the wings the flyer was G P rogers the flying record for the same distance which in 1911 took from september I 1 17 to december 10 is now nine hours and twenty six minutes 0 AS TO WARTIME WAR TIME PLANES so much for commercial flying the government has another anoche r problem probe for wartime war time planes we e are now far behind the rest of the larger nations in flying equipment and despite the fact that the adm administration inist threw its weight behind a five years building program for the army we are now only 50 planes better off than we were when the five year program was adopted three years ago at that time we formed a board of experts headed by newton baker former secretary of war on tho the board we had the best fliers the best experts in aviation technique building designing and producing the board found we had 1400 army planes and it recommended that the army should have 2320 planes and that this increase should be arrived at by building planes a year that took into consideration the fact that army planes go out of use by crashes and obsolescence at the rate of 40 per cent a year so that new planes a year would give us a competent army air force of 2320 planes by 1939 which is only two years ahead of us but three years have passed and we are only 50 planes better off of than we were three years ago when we started the reason is congressional economy of a very questionable sort at any rate the army plane a year program was ok d by president roosevelt and sent to congress which cut the plan down to a sum which allows for only added planes a year and just that difference keeps our army air force at ai a standstill there may be some saving grace in this after all because military planes are being improved quits quite as rapidly as the commercial planes the great hying flying forts we now have are bigger heavier have more flying range and carry more destruction than the mechanical angels of death the factories were producing even two years ago these larger bombing planes require more officers cars and men which is why more students are going into the army air reserve forces the army wants to bring that air fleet up to 2500 in the short space of two years it will ask president roosevelt to approve a hundred million dollar appropriation this next year to make up for the gaps in the program through congressional appropriations of thirty million dollars a year instead of the fifty million dollars a year the plane piane a year required excitement AHEAD plenty of excitement ahead when the new house organizes and the democrats must choose a majority leader the speaker will be the present incumbent representative bankhead of alabama but the fight for majority leader gives promise of a bang up scrap the two main contenders are rep john oconnor of new york chairman of the powerful rules committee who was made acting majority leader a few months ago when the beloved speaker byrnes died and majority leader bankhead was elected speaker the house has the old f fash ash boned habit of choosing committee chairmen by seniority A man simply stays on a committee until his superiors have died or been defeated and he finds himself at the top but for a new speaker and a new majority leader members of congress always make it a free for all fight this time the two champions among the democrats who seek the jo job b could very well be on opposite sides because they have been opposed in the important power trust fight initiated by roosevelt and carried through the house by representative senta tive sam rayburn of texas who is now seeking the majority leadership and opposed largely by representative john oconnor of new york who was close enough to the private power interests to be looked upon as one of the power spokesmen rayburn was the author of the bill to eliminate the useless power trust holding companies which precipitated the flood of telegrams and protests from stockholders in electric light companies oconnor did what he could to block the bill there were at least 30 congressmen who lost their seats as the result of that power fight and it is even now a red hot subject in in congress the contest between these two men in washington is causing as much excitement as anything thai tha happened in the late presidential election rayburn has many friends but he comes from texas which already has the vice presidency and house committees other states want a bit of the pie therefore john rankin of mississippi steps into the ring and declares that he is the logical man for leader he is a strong foe of the power trust the loudest friend the TVA has and is chairman of the veterans committee of the house an influential group representative rankin thinks jie could walk right in between rayburn and 0 connor and perhaps he could were it not for the fact that representative james mead of buffalo new york puts in a claim he argues that he h e is from new york which has very little in the way of committee assignments but his opponents say that new york has the presidency which seems enough another dark horse is representative woodrum Woo druin of virginia conspicuously new deal in his sympathies when senators glass and byrd of that state were away off the new deal reservation majority leadership is a powerful and conspicuous post it carries rr es the responsibility of putting over the program which leads to the Q newspaper New piper union |