Bennett Trophy

Rainclouds swaddled the low countries along the North Sea, whipped and harried by a southwest wind, as 14 monstrous rubber bubbles sailed aloft from an aviation field near Antwerp and drifted off toward the Dutch frontier. Night fell before all the bubbles had come again to earth. Dawn found one of them still coasting northeast over the boggy islands and bays of Denmark, over the fat fields of southern Sweden. Not until the wind, with its sleet and snow-squalls, threatened to drive this bubble on out over the Baltic Sea beyond Solvesborg on Hano Bay, did it descend. Then Pilots Ward T. Van Orman and Walter W. Horgan stepped out of their basket under the U. S. balloon, Goodyear III, telegraphed their position back to Antwerp, were declared winners of the annual Gordon Bennett Trophy race,* having covered 528 miles. Their nearest competitor was the U. S. Army S-16, which had caught a more southerly wind current and been blown across Germany to Krakow, 373 miles from Antwerp. The Belgica was third, 279 miles, and another Belgian bag, the Prince Leopold (winner in 1925), fourth with 192 miles. Great concern was felt for Pilot John A. Boettner of the Akron N. A. A., whose bag was known to have become waterlogged soon after entering the low-moving clouds, to have dropped to earth, bumped out Boettner's companion, H. W. Maxson, gone dragging off over a tilled field and then aloft again. But Boettner reported himself safe in Holland next morning.

The victory of Pilot Van Orman made him world's champion balloonist for this year. Last month he won the Litchfield Trophy by flying the Goodyear IV from Little Rock, Ark., 780 miles to Petersburg, Va. (TIME, May 10, AERONAUTICS). Boettner and the Akron N. A. A. finished second in that race. Pilot Van Orman also won the Litchfield Trophy last year with a flight of 1,072 miles. His avoidance of the Baltic Sea last week reflected a lesson learned in the Bennett race last year when he and the Goodyear III dropped into the Atlantic, being rescued by a passing steamship (TIME, June 1, 1925).

Pilot von Orman is a quiet studious chap of 32, an Ohioan, a graduate of the Case School of Applied Science. Ballooning has made him an astute meteorologist. At the Goodyear plant in Akron, where he is employed, his advice is considered invaluable upon whether or not to go fishing.

*The second race of a second series. In 1913, with a third consecutive victory, Belgium won outright the trophy established in that year in memory of Publisher James Gordon (New York Herald) Bennett (1794-1872) by his son, J. G. B. Jr. Magnanimous, Belgium then redonated the trophy.