Air Flivvers

Having toured 5,000 miles of Europe in his "vest-pocket airplane," the Yankee Doodle, George Kern Jr., son of a meatpacker, retired, returned to the U. S. last fortnight to show the incredulous an air flivver which weighs only 575 pounds, costs $2,100, flies for three cents a mile, crosses the Alps.

It was as he was flying across Europe in a commercial airliner recently, that Tourist Kern met, as fellow-passenger, Willibald Seypelt, German flier during the War. Enthusiastically, Pilot Seypelt told the U. S. tourist of a tiny plane made in Stuttgart, after the designs by one Hans Klemm. Together they went to Stuttgart, found a little monoplane, with long low-set wings and a short body, the latest idea in European airplane design. Only 22 feet long, it had a wingspread of 43 feet. A 29-h.p. Klemm-Daimler motor furnished the power to carry about 400 pounds.

Tourist Kern, enthusiastic, wrote a check; in two and one-half hours of instruction he became Flier Kern. With Pilot Seypelt they set out over Europe, over nine different countries, 5,000 miles Total expenditures for gas, oil, etc.: $180. In the U. S., where gasoline and oil are cheaper, the cost would have been no more than one cent a mile.

"It performed satisfactorily in every way," said Flier Kern. "On New Year's Day we crossed the Alps at the point where Austria, Italy, and Jugoslavia join, making the trip from Udine, Italy, to Vienna on schedule in spite of the fact that we were advised not to undertake it by the Italian authorities. The plane had dual controls and one of its features is that it handles so easily you could land on a dime. As a matter of fact, one time coming down unexpectedly into a bora, as the strong winds of northern Italy are called, we landed within sixty feet. The Yankee Doodle carries ten gallons of gasoline and that gives it a range of about 475 miles."

The U. S. has flivver planes, too; is getting more.

For the first time in history, without the feverish stimulus of war, airplane factories are buzzing, lathes are churning, propellers are spinning. Safely ensconced behind the spectacular flights that jostle one another on the front pages of the newspapers, the airplane industry is humming with orders. The common people are taking to the air.

A survey conducted by Popular Science Monthly shows that the actual costs of flying among amateur pilots is much lower than generally supposed. Planes cost from $400 to $12,000, with the average around $3,000, about the cost of a Pierce-Arrow automobile. Hangar rental costs from $15 to $50 a month, with the average $25.

Flying cost, with upkeep included, runs from three cents a mile to 25, with the average nine.

Among U. S. air-flivver owners are:

Automobile Dealer D. E. McDaneld, aged 48, of Pasadena, Cal.; he learned to fly at 45 and now goes to business by air.

Paul Crippen, engineering student at Northwestern University, has one plane he built himself for $800 and a second he bought second-hand for $750.

H. S. Hilliker, Buffalo businessman, travels in his Stinson-Detroiter, which cost him $11,000 f.o.b. Detroit.

Banker W. J. Johnson, of Chicago, has a $12,000 biplane. "The only use to which I put my ship," he says, "is pleasure. Instead of taking my wife and seven-year-old son for a short week-end trip in the car, as I used to do, we now climb aboard the ship and take a regular trip. On my vacation we went to California. . . ."

Fifty-odd manufacturers are advertising planes for sale. Many of them are still in the experimental stage, but 21 types of airplanes have been officially approved by the Department of Commerce in Washington. Companies barely struggling along last year are this year struggling to catch up on orders.

An air garage in Texas reports that during 1927 it rebuilt 123 planes and overhauled 432 engines.

So phenomenal is the boom that Aviation, pioneer among the dozen airplane magazines now crowding the newsstands, solemnly issues a warning to the industry. Good things do not last forever, says Aviation editorially, and if flying is to be maintained at its present speed, the manufacturers and commercial airlines must undertake advertising and publicity campaigns to supplement the more spectacular aerial achievements.