Paris Preliminaries

Paris Preliminaries

Both shores of the Atlantic buzzed last week with the activities of men determined to fly between New York and Paris. The standing offer of Raymond C. Orteig, Manhattan hotel man, of $25,000 to the first successful performer, and the 10,000 francs ($400) offered by the Paris Temps, had little to do with the case. These sums would hardly pay interest on the total investments involved. Fame, promotions, cinema and press contracts, above all Adventure--were the real stimulants.

Abroad, five bands of Frenchmen were thus stimulated, the most notable being headed by Ace Coli and Ace Nungesser. But shortage of capital hindered the French preparations.

In the U. S., three expeditions actually tested their planes, accumulated final equipment:

Wright-Bellanca. Engineer Giuseppe M. Bellanca of the Columbia Aircraft Corp. had conditioned an elderly yellow-winged monoplane with one Wright motor, and scouted around for pilots. Lieut. Leigh Wade, round-the-world flyer, declined the invitation, saying Mr. Bellanca's plans were too stunt-like, not scientific. Shrugging, Mr. Bellanca engaged Pilots Clarence D. Chamberlain and burly Bert Acosta, onetime auto speedster, to test his ship's endurance. Up they put from Mitchell Field, L. L, with 385 gallons of ethylated (high power) gasoline. All day they droned back and forth over suburbia, circled the Woolworth Building, hovered over Hadley Field, N. J., swung back to drop notes on Mitchell Field. All that starry night they wandered slowly around the sky, and all the next day, and through the next night, a muggy, cloudy one. Newsgatherers flew up alongside to shout unintelligible things through megaphones. Messrs. Acosta and Chamberlain were looking tired and oil-blobbed. They swallowed soup and sandwiches, caught cat naps on the mattressed fuel tank, while on and on they droned, almost lazily (about 80 m.p.h.) for they were cruising against time. Not for 51 hr., 11 min., 25 sec., did they coast to earth, having broken the U. S. and world's records for pro-traded flight.* In the same time, conditions favoring, they could have flown from Manhattan to Vienna. They had covered 4,100 miles. To Paris it is 3,600 miles from Manhattan. Jubilant, Engineer Bellanca's employers offered competitors a three-hour headstart in the race to Paris. The Bellanca Monoplane's normal cruising speed is 110 m. p. h. She would require only some 35 hours to reach Paris--if she could stay up that long again.

America. Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd, U. S. N., and his comrades in polar flight last year-- Floyd Bennett, C. W. 0., and Lieut. George O. Noville/---have a new plane. Last year rich Henry Ford gave them the Josephine Ford. This year rich Rodman Wanamaker gave them the America. Like Josephine it is a triple-motored Fokker. Its wings spread 73 feet. It shines and is beautiful, but it will not fly to Paris soon. . . . Last week, Commander Byrd and his aides were all but ducked in greasy water the afternoon they tried out their collapsible rubber lifeboat on the North River. The next afternoon, with Engineer Anthony Fokker, they soared aloft in the America which, as it returned to earth and taxied along the Hasbrouck Heights (N. J.) field, lowered its heavy nose and flopped over abruptly in a heavy somersault. Lieutenant Noville suffered an injured pelvis, Officer Bennett a cracked thigh, Commander Byrd a broken wrist, Designer Fokker a bad shaking, the America a splintered propeller, crumpled nose and fuselage.

American Legion. The other preliminary of the week was a surprise flight by Lieut. Commander Noel Davis and Lieut. Stanton H. Wooster in their trimotored biplane, American Legion, at Bristol, Pa. This plane is a standard Army bomber, produced by the Keystone Aircraft Corp. with Wright-Whirl-wind motors, 200 h. p. each. Flyer Davis was counting on six weeks of test flying but called his ship "safe as a railroad." The Davis backing: a New York-Paris Non-Stop Flight Corp.; Chairman, Richard Hoyt of Hayden, Stone & Co., Manhattan stock-and-bond house.

*The previous record was 45 hr., 11 min.. 59 sec., set in 1925 by Lieuts. Drouhin and Landry of France. But Frenchmen, while admiring, were little impressed with the new record. Not time aloft, said they, but distance is what counts now. Their Flyers Challe and Weiser hold that record, from Le Bourget, France, to Bander Ab bas, Persia -- 3,208 miles at one hop.

/-Not to be confused with General Umberto Nobile, engineer and helmsman of the Pole-crossing Italian dirigible, Norge.