For Amateurs

The Sportsman Pilot, a monthly magazine devoted to the activities of amateur flyers, took the air last week. On shiny paper cut slightly larger than this page, Editor Darwin J. Adams and Managing Editor Franklin Pinkham printed articles and pictures calculated to make as-yet-wingless readers look skyward. Publicist Fitzhugh Green tried to explain why Commander Byrd is in the Antarctic. Aviatrix Amelia Earhart, discoursed on woman's status in aviation.

Other articles were by Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney and George M. Pynchon Jr., two of the East's more advanced amateurs. Royal Dixon, imaginative naturalist, exposed the flight methods of eagles, kites, pelicans and buzzards. The tenor of the whole magazine was calculated to encourage more people to buy more planes, to make the grass grow green upon the lawns of aviation country clubs. In the West, where amateur flying is already pretty much a matter of course, The Sportsman Pilot may seem precious. In the East it should help the air to become fashionable and populous.