Flights & Flyers

No. 17. Lieut. William S. MacLaren and Widow Beryl Hart, 27, flying the Bellanca seaplane Tradewind, reached Bermuda fortnight ago in their attempted "payload" flight from New York to Paris. They took off again for the Azores, flew into a high wind over heavy seas, were not again seen or heard from. A few optimists clung to the ephemeral hope that the flyers were alive on one of the outlying Azores. But cold reason labelled the Tradewind the seventeenth transatlantic plane to be lost since 1927; the pilots the 30th and 31st; Mrs. Hart the fourth woman.

Barter. Last week General Italo Balbo's squadron of transatlantic seaplanes (TIME, Jan. 19) flew on from Natal to Rio de Janeiro, whence it was reported that the eleven Savoia-Marchetti ships would be delivered to the Brazilian Government in exchange for $618,420 worth of coffee.

Stouts. As he often does, William Bushnell Stout, famed builder of Ford metal transports, flew last week at Dearborn, Mich., with his daughter Wilma, 19, in his own Fleet biplane. The glare of sun on snow blinded him as he glided to a landing on Ford Airport. The rolling plane struck a rut, nosed over, administered severe headcuts to Father & Daughter Stout.

Soapbox. A bird biplane landed on Roosevelt Field, N. Y., one afternoon last week and a small boy in knee-breeches jumped out. Bystanders looked casually for the pilot to follow him. None appeared. The boy, Joseph Sheehan Jr., 12, of Suffern, N. Y., had made his first solo flight, sitting on a soap-box and two air cushions to reach the controls. Next day Henry Bierds, 17, of Nyack (near Suffern) soloed after 100 min. instruction.

Echo-Meter. From its great hangar at Lakehurst, N. J., where it had undergone winter overhaul, the Navy dirigible Los Angeles emerged last week, its new coat of silver paint gleaming in the sun, and cruised in preparation for its flight to Panama for the Navy war games. As new equipment the Los Angeles carried a radio-echo-log, a finely adjusted altimeter which indicates the height of the craft by the time required for a radio signal to reach the ground and rebound to a receiving device.

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