Flights & Flyers

For Speed's Sake. It takes a very special sort of nerve to fly 300 m.p.h. Because he possesses such nerve, and because it was anxious to fly faster than the rest of the world, the U.S. Navy permitted big, hard-boiled Lieut. Alford Joseph Williams Jr., to stay on special duty from 1923, when he won the Pulitzer race and set a U.S. speed record, until last week. After hundreds of hours of experimental flying--inverted, spinning, high speed--for which he holds the Distinguished Flying Cross. Lieut. Williams last year obtained the backing of air-minded tycoons in New York and Chicago to construct the Mercury, a waspish little projectile with a 24-cylinder, 1,200 h.p. Packard motor, to compete for the Schneider Cup (world speed trophy for seaplanes) at Cowes, England. But the Mercury, too heavy for her lifting power, never got far from the Severn River off Annapolis where she was tested (TIME, Aug. 19). Meantime, to continue nervy Lieut. Williams in his country's best uses, the Navy Department last week ordered him to sea with the aircraft carrier Lexington, his first "active" duty in seven years. Promptly, Speedster Williams countered. As the Army's fastest flyer, Lieut. James Doolittle, had done a month prior, Williams resigned from his country's service, "that I shall be free to devote my full time and energy, without constraint," to outflying the world.

Slow Glide. At Roosevelt Field last week, Pilot Clarence D. Chamberlin and his Crescent cabin ship demonstrated that a skilled pilot in a reasonably stable plane can glide the plane at dangerous stalling speed to land more slowly than a man drops in a parachute.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.