Transpacific

Swiftly on a dozen fronts last week, Pan American Airways' transpacific air service marched towards its goal.

P: In Honolulu, Board Chairman Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney announced that his company would make the first commercial flight to China by summer's end.

P: In Washington, the Navy Department authorized establishment of operating bases on three tiny mid-Pacific islands-- Midway, Wake and Guam.

P: In Seattle, the 15,000-ton steamer North Haven prepared to leave with 300 carloads of material to build the bases.

P: In Baltimore, Glenn Luther Martin's gigantic new Clipper No. 7, laid up for three months because of ice conditions in Chesapeake Bay, got off on a test flight with the biggest load (51,000 lb.) ever carried by a U. S.-built aircraft.

P: In Miami, Igor Ivan Sikorsky's S-42, after months of training flights, was being tuned for survey hops over the Pacific.

P: From Tokyo went loud diplomatic squeals.

Director Eugene Luther Vidal of the Bureau of Air Commerce was not one to sit back and watch Pan American's big show go on without doing anything. Last year the onetime West Point footballer was charged by Congress with providing safety for U. S. airways not only within the Nation's borders but beyond them. Out he went to Oakland, Calif., surrounded himself with technical experts, chartered TWA's original Douglas transport--long used as an experimental "dog-ship"-- prepared it for ocean flying experiments. Because of the additional weight, and because the Douglas is a skin-stressed airplane, the windows had to be replaced with duralumin sheeting. Conspicuous atop the cabin was a big loop aerial.

Newshawks, already titillated by a Douglas "mystery ship" at nearby Santa Monica (see col. 1), sensed in the windowless transport an even bigger mystery. The story got around that the plane would take off without a soul inside, fly straight to Honolulu by means of a "robot" pilot and directional radio. Finally it was established that Director Vidal was only testing out a compass--a radio "homing" device which, he thought, might revolutionize long-distance flying over water. It had been used by the late Macon, it had been tested for more than a year by the Army Air Corps and the Department of Commerce. It was, in fact, a key unit in their blind landing systems.

In operation, the Kruesi Radio Homing Compass is simplicity itself. You tune in on a commercial broadcast, listen to Paul Whiteman or Father Coughlin. Then you switch off the earphones, turn on the bearing-indicator. A pointer on the instrument-board dial guides you so accurately to the broadcasting station that if a balloon were sent up from it on a string you would cut the string in half, flying blind. By taking cross-bearings on two broadcasting stations you can determine your position to a hair's breadth.

Unfortunately, there are no broadcasting stations out in the Pacific. Director Vidal's Douglas was to determine: 1) whether land stations on both sides had sufficient range to make the Kruesi Compass practicable in transpacific flying; 2) whether ships' transmitters could be used in lieu of broadcasting stations; 3) whether it would be practicable to anchor miniature seadromes at intervals over the Pacific, use them as 24-hr. broadcasting stations. Estimated useful range of the Kruesi Compass over water was 700 mi., out-&-out maximum 1,500 mi. The windowless Douglas, manned by Army blind flying experts, took a "feeler" trip out over the Pacific, located several ships by radio, flew back through blinding fog with perfect accuracy.

Elated, Director Vidal went back to Washington, ordered the Douglas to make more experimental flights, go all the way to Honolulu.

Far apart from all this hubbub was Mr. Kruesi. The tall, dark, youngish-looking man who invented the device which bears his name was toiling obscurely as a civilian radio engineer employed by the Army at Wright Field (Dayton, Ohio) at a salary of some $3,400 a year. Geoffrey Gottlieb Kruesi, having revolutionized long-distance flying, is at 38 neither rich nor famed. Born in Switzerland (his father was a butcher), he studied engineering at Zurich Polytechnic Institute, arrived in the U. S. 15 years ago. In California he worked under Dr. Frederick August Kolster, famed "father of the radio compass," at Federal Telegraph Co., Palo Alto.

There he met Herbert Hoover Jr., went over to Western Air Express when that company made Junior Hoover its chief radio engineer. It was while working there in 1930, under Junior Hoover's supervision, that Geoffrey Kruesi invented the Homing Compass (TIME, Dec. 29, 1930). Lacking funds to develop it, Western Air Express soon dropped Inventor Kruesi from its payroll. In 1931 he was hired by the Army, has lived modestly in Dayton ever since.

The Army has spent some $100,000 perfecting the Kruesi Compass, has made it a compact unit which weighs less than 45 lb., fits in a small box. Patent rights are owned by the U. S. Government, manufacturing rights by Fairchild Aviation Corp., which paid Inventor Kruesi a modest advance royalty. Last week the Fairchild factory at Woodside, L. I. was working day & night to fill an Army order for 500 Kruesi Compasses. From this $150,000 order, Inventor Kruesi will receive not one penny. Reason: He is a Government employe, may not profit from Government expenditures.

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