Records

Over Sea. From July to end of October U. S.-owned Pan American Airways, British-owned Imperial Airways, Ltd. and German-owned Deutsche Lufthansa have flown big, new airplanes 26 times over the North Atlantic, piled up 90,000 miles of ocean flight. Weakest of nations in 1937's international bid for future U. S.-Europe air business has been France. Following the abandonment of the Paris-sponsored mass race over the Atlantic in May and the failure of Portugal to reply to France's request for permission to use the Azores, not one French airplane attempted a North Atlantic crossing.

Typical of France's oversea air condition is the 40-ton French sesquiplane, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris, built in 1934 and now an old-fashioned monster. She has six 12-cylinder, 890 h.p., water-cooled Hispano-Suiza engines, has 161-ft. wing spread--wider than any U. S. air-plane--but she cruises at only 142 m.p.h. Two years ago, she was anchored in Pensacola Bay while her crew was ashore, capsized during a squall, was salvaged with difficulty, flown home in chagrin.

Last week, however, the ancient, lumbering Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris, recently rebuilt, taxied nearly two miles on the sea off Port Lyautey, Morocco, finally got into the air, remained there with its crew of six under veteran Pilot Henri Guillaumet until it had reached Maceio, Brazil, a nonstop seaplane flight 154 miles longer than the record of 3,281 miles, established by Lieut. Commander Knefler McGinnis between Cristobal Harbor, C. Z. and San Francisco Bay in October 1935.

On Land. Britain's Captain George Edward Thomas Eyston has a conveyance. It is 36 ft. long, weighs 14,000 lb., has six wheels (two pairs forward tandem, two double rear wheels), boasts a tail fin sporting the Union Jack, is called Thunderbolt and is described by courtesy as an automobile. Last week he took this gadget out on Utah's Bonneville salt flats, warmed up its 24-cylinder, 4,000-h.p. Rolls-Royce twin engines, and made a try at the 301 m.p.h. land speed record established by Sir Malcolm Campbell two years ago.

He did not officially break the record because his clutch gave out and he was unable to make the required return trip over the measured course, but Captain Eyston traveled faster than man has ever traveled on land before. He was clocked over the first leg of his course at 309.6 m.p.h. Said the 40-year-old English captain, who raises chickens as a hobby: "I just sight her along the marker line and she pretty much steers herself."

Since his trials had only begun, it seemed likely that Sir Malcolm's speed record would soon fall, and if it does the details of Captain Eyston's contraption would be released to satisfy the curiosity of the public and provide advertising copy for the manufacturers who contributed to its still secret construction.

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