A Star Is Born

There had never been anything quite like it in the aviation industry. The first to talk was Jack Frye, the burly, kinky-haired president of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. Said he: TWA has spent $30,000,000 to buy 36 Constellations, Lockheed Aircraft Corp.'s eel-sleek, 340-mile-an-hour airliner.

When TWA gets its first commercial Constellations in a few weeks, it will start its commercial flights across the Atlantic forthwith. Jack Frye promised that TWA's new beauties could fly nonstop from New York to Paris in about 14 hours, little more than half the present flying time of Pan American Airways Corp. and American Export Airlines, Inc. Furthermore, said Mr. Frye unctuously, TWA will cut the present transatlantic fare of $572 substantially, set it at a "reasonable" figure.

TWA will also put Constellations on transcontinental routes, to cut the coast-to-coast time to ten hours.

Hardly had Jack Frye stopped talking when four other airlines spoke out, suddenly filling the air with the promise of fleets of the planes pilots already call "Connie." Pan Am ordered 21 for its transatlantic routes and Pan American-Grace ordered two for its South American routes; American Export Airlines (division of American Airlines) ordered seven; Eastern Air Lines ordered 20.

As a result, flying times will go. down on air routes all over the world. The new times: New York to Boston, 45 minutes; New York to Moscow, 16 1/2 hours; Balboa to Buenos Aires, 14 hours. By Constellation time, no place in the world will be much over 40 hours from New York.

By the time this flurry of announcements had died, Lockheed's smart, shy 48-year-old President Robert E. Gross had firm orders on the books for $68,000,000 worth of Constellations, largest single block of commercial orders in aviation history. With this fat backlog, Lockheed moved into Planemaker Donald W. Douglas' place as the No. 1 U.S. commercial plane builder. In one hop, the four-motored, 51 passenger Constellation had carried Lockheed to the top of the heap.

Up TWA. For this feat, Lockheed's Bob Gross has to share the credit with Jack Frye and Howard Hughes, the thin-faced, lanky flyer, tool maker, brewer, financier and movie maker, who owns the controlling interest in TWA. Six years ago, Hughes and Frye decided that TWA should expand its routes around the world. For this, they needed a new plane. So they drew up specifications for the Constellation, gave Lockheed the job of designing and building it.

Because of the war, the first one did not roll out of Lockheed's Burbank, Calif, plant until late in 1942, and it was for the Army. The Army liked it so well that it ordered 270 more. But Hughes and Frye had a chance to test the bird they had hatched. In the spring of 1944 they flew a Constellation across the continent in six hours, 58 minutes; another flew from New York to Paris in 14 hours, twelve minutes for the Army's Air Transport Command.

Fortnight ago the Army canceled its contract, made Constellations available to airlines. Now Hughes and Frye will get the first twelve Constellations before the other lines get any. By the time Pan Am et al get theirs, TWA expects to have such a start that the postwar air race will be just a vapor trail.

No commercial U.S. planes have yet tested the "over the roof" route from the U.S. to Japan. Last week, three U.S. Army B-29s did it for them, made it look ridiculously easy. The planes took off from an airfield on the island of Hokkaido, some 500 miles north of Tokyo, and headed for Washington, D.C. Heavily loaded with 10,000 gallons of gasoline apiece, they hoped to make the trip in one hop. As they swept past Kamchatka, Russian fliers did acrobatics around them. Over Fairbanks, Alaska, when the outside temperature fell to 20 below, the crews idled about in shirtsleeves in their heated, pressurized cabins.

But over Canada the planes ran into headwinds and trouble. They used up so much gas that they all had to come down at Chicago. But it was still the longest nonstop flight in U.S. Army history.* At Chicago they refueled and went on to Washington. Time for the 5,995-mile nonstop flight to Chicago: 25 hours, 43 minutes, an average speed of about 286 m.p.h. Said Lieut. General Barney Giles, commanding the flight: "This was a practical test, not a stunt." He added that planes soon will be flying back and forth without trouble all the time.

Next week the Army will blaze another trail. The Air Transport Command will start a weekly round-the-world air service from Washington, D.C., via the Azores, Cairo, India, China, Guam, Honolulu and San Francisco. The globe-girdling will be done in Douglas 40-passenger C-54s, will take 151 hours. Fare for civilian passengers (who must have military certificates of necessity): $2,692.

* World's record nonstop flight was made in 1938 by two British Royal Air Force Vickers-Wellesley planes between Ismailia, Egypt and Darwin, Australia (7,158 mi.).

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