Prize Diesel

A committee of the National Aeronautic Association met in Washington last week to puzzle out what was "the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year." Was it the Navy's near-elimination of the carbon monoxide hazard in fighting planes? Or Harold Gatty's ingenious navigating instruments which guided him and Pilot Wiley Post around the world in nine days? Or the construction of the biggest airship in the world--the U. S. S. Akron? Or the application of automatic wing-slots and flaps to Curtiss attack planes? Or Eastern Air Transport's adoption of the Sperry automatic pilot? . . . It was none of these, the committee concluded. It was the 84-hr. endurance flight record (non-refueling) made at Jacksonville, Fla. last May by a Bellanca plane powered with a Packard Diesel engine. To Packard Motor Car Co. went the Collier Trophy for 1931.

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