Black Year & Big Three

Aviation companies hope never to see another year like 1930. Already ridden by its own ills, the industry was laid still lower by the Depression. People who might otherwise have flown were unwilling or unable to spend the money. Last fortnight appeared the year's reckonings of the three greatest domestic aviation companies: Curtiss-Wright Corp., which in 1929 lost only $668,532 during its first five months, showed the industry's greatest net loss for 1930--$9,012,919. Included in that total was an extraordinary charge of $2,254,842 for inventory adjustment and development write-off. More than its share of bad luck befell Curtiss-Wright in a strike at the plant of Wright Aeronautical Corp. which for several months delayed the consolidation of plane and engine manufacture at Buffalo, N. Y. But the company can point with pride to $12,000,000 unfilled orders, 20% more than a year ago. Aviation Corp. President Frederic Gallup Coburn, who took the controls of Aviation Corp. a year ago, must have wished last week that financial statements covered six-month periods only. For while the year's operating loss before depreciation was $1,460,295, the loss for the second six months (in which time President Coburn's administration really began to have effect) was only $477,219. Moreover, full benefits of the new mail contracts and revised rates under the McNary-Watres Air Mail Act were not fully felt until the first of this year: operating losses for January and February 1931 were $500,000 less than for that period a year ago. The company's total loss, including depreciations and charge-offs, was $4,703,601; last six months, $1,467,284; for 1929 (the company's first ten months) $1,443,822. United Aircraft & Transport Corp. has been aviation's biggest moneymaker. In 1929 its net earnings were $8,294,415. Last year profits shrank to $3,302,206, but the company was able to pay $720,000 dividends on preferred stock. Confidently President Frederick Brant Rentschler showed stockholders $23,844,830 current assets (including $14,213,944 cash and readily marketable securities) against current liabilities of $1,997,621.

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