Flyings

His plane circling above the Gettysburg airport, Aviator Paul Charles climbed under the wings, lashed a broken landing gear, returned to guide the machine safely to earth. At 21, Charles is said to be the youngest licensed commercial pilot in the U. S.

Mary du Cauroy, Duchess of Bedford, not content to cast 62-year-old eyes on the phenomena of eagles and buzzards (TIME, April 23), demanded the controls of the Fokker monoplane in which she will fly to India and back. Pilot Barnard hesitated, sniffed the gusty wind, complied. Upon landing, he admitted: "The Duchess did extremely well for a day like this."

Enthused, confident, Her Grace ordered an immediate start for India. The plane rose heavily, snapped four telegraph wires, winged its way to Sofia, Aleppo. . . .

Postmaster General New, father of U. S. air mails, noted proudly May's total of 199,284 Ibs. carried over 19 routes, observed an increase of 14 tons over April's figures. Finding volume satisfactory, Mr. New failed to report efficiency statistics. May's table:

Route Pounds of Mail

Boston--New York 3,291

Chicago--St. Louis .3,268

Chicago--Kansas City--Dallas 13,448

Salt Lake City--Los Angeles 21,747

Salt Lake City--Pasco 7,471

Detroit--Cleveland 144

Detroit--Chicago --1,524

Seattle--Los Angeles --. . 8,111

Chicago -- Minneapolis 4,137

Cleveland--Pittsburgh 2,550

Cheyenne--Pueblo --....--3,702

New York--Chicago 53,012

Chicago--San Francisco 56,654

New York--Atlanta 8,566

Buffalo--Cleveland 1,272

Dallas--Galveston 1,980

Dallas--San Antonio --.... 2,689

Atlanta--New Orleans --. .3,143

Chicago--Cincinnati 2,575

The largest single load of mail ever transported by air, weighing 1,839 Iks., has been shipped from Cuba to the U. S.

Jack Knight, air mail pilot on the Omaha-Cheyenne route, told his messmates: "I saw something on the wing wire. It was a sparrow. It didn't move. I taxied half way across the field. I speeded up. It fell off. The floodlight was on and I could still see it. The bird flew and caught up with me. Well, it landed right on that wire again."

Over Long Island, last week, Lieut. Maxwell W. Balfour and Lieut. John H. McCormack were testing a Curtiss falcon preparatory to accepting it for the Army. They put it into a roll at 3,000 feet. The wings crumpled and the fuselage "flew right out of the wings" they said. Calmly they turned off the ignition (to prevent fire in the crash) and jumped out with parachutes. The fuselage came to earth in the stables of the Meadow Brook Club, killing two polo ponies: Gay Boy, used in the International Cup Play last autumn by Malcolm Stevenson, and Anaconda, also prized. Said William Averell Harriman, financier, owner of the two ponies: "They were two of the best polo ponies in the world. I raised them from colts. They were priceless."