Flying Matters

In Japan, four aviators were in training for the long and arduous flight to the U. S. across the Pacific. "I consider myself already a dead man," was their oft-repeated toast. Last week one of the four, Yukichi Goto, went up as observer for another pilot. Their plane crashed and he was burned to death. Dauntless, his three comrades trained on.

Planes rise slowly with a heavy load, requiring long (and expensive) landing fields. W. R. Turnbull, Canadian, announced last week that he had invented a successful variable pitch propeller, by the use of which planes can rise more quickly, can even back up. The angle of the blades on his propeller may be changed while in motion, thereby affecting the strength of his motor like a shift of gears on an automobile. The Canadian Air Force tested with optimism.

At St. Petersburg, Fla., her 104th birthday duly celebrated. Mrs. Catherine Fenton of Jamestown, N. Y., went up for her first airplane ride last week. She rode with George W. Haldeman, who piloted Ruth Elder to a spot in the Atlantic somewhere near the Azores. Said Mrs. Fenton: "I am happy, O, so happy."

At St. Petersburg, Fla., nineteen-year-old Jeanne Durand wanted to set a new world's record for a parachute jump. Last week she climbed onto the wing of a plane, 15,000 feet in the air, and let go. Her parachute caught on the plane and she faced certain death until Dr. R. L. Ellis, her pilot, brought the ship safely to earth on one wheel and a wing tip, leaving her safe, grateful.

Prizes of $5,000 for the development of aviation among college men have been offered by Grover C. Loening, designer of the Loening amphibian airplane. A race will be held at Mitchell Field on June 23 when college men, in their own or borrowed planes, will race for money. The race will be conducted under the auspices of the National Aeronautic Association with these judges: Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Reginald L. Brooks, Secretary of War for Aviation F. Trubee Davison, Thomas Hitchcock Jr.

In Holland, little children do not want to be Lindberghs. They want to fly one of "Uncle Tony's" ships. Anthony H. G. Fokker is the Dutch boy's model of greatness. He wants to make Holland an air power. Last week he made plans for regular service between Holland and the great Dutch Island of Java 9,000 miles away. Amsterdam is already linked with London, Paris, Berlin by daily air lines.

The Wool Growers and Stockmen's Association of South Dakota recently hired two fliers to eliminate coyotes from their sheep-grazing lands. In one day's hunting Charles Orlup and Earl Wilson shot down 68.

W. E. Bird had been refused a pilot's license by the San Diego Air Control Board. His home-made monoplane had also been pronounced unfit to fly. Yet last week he took it into the air with four passengers, nose-dived 300 feet to earth while trying to avoid a midair crash with a big Maddux plane. Mr. Bird and his four passengers were killed instantly. The home-made monoplane was a twisted wreck in a field near Oldtown, Calif.

The Rev. L. Daniels, it became known last week, uses a white-painted plane to visit his parishioners in Welcannia, New South Wales. His plane is labelled "CHURCH OF ENGLAND."