Pilot's Eyes

Since 1928 some 5,000 applicants for private pilot's licenses and student permits have been rejected because their eyesight was below this requirement:". . . at least 20/50 in each eye without correction, which can be corrected approximately to normal [20/20]* by goggle lenses. . . ." Glasses were forbidden both during tests and in flight. The rule had the effect of limiting potential private flyers to 40% of the population up to middle age.

Last week the Department of Commerce opened the airways to glass-wearers. Henceforth applicants will be considered if their eyes, no matter how weak, measure 20/30 or better with glasses. Those who pass by means of glasses must wear them whenever they fly. Penalty: grounding. About 60% of all persons up to middle age could meet the revised requirement, which is little more strict than that for automobile drivers (20/40).

Qualification for commercial and transport pilots (normal eyesight without correction) remained the same.

Again, Hinkler

Harold J. L. ("Bert") Hinkler, who has a knack of getting small airplanes into extraordinary places, took a Puss Moth out of North Beach, L. I. one afternoon last week, set it down on the polo grounds of Kingston, Jamaica next morning. The 1,800-mi. flight was the first nonstop from New York, and Pilot Hinkler's was the first land plane to touch Jamaican soil, previous visitors having been amphibians or seaplanes.

Fishtailing

It is one thing to land a plane on its belly because you have deliberately dropped your landing gear, as did Herndon & Pangborn when they flew the Pacific. It is another and highly disconcerting thing to discover unexpectedly that you must land like that when your Big Boss is your passenger. Last week Lieut. Elwood Quesada (of the Army's original Question Mark endurance team) had that experience over Long Island. His passenger, Frederick Trubee Davison, Assistant Secretary of War for Aeronautics, wanted to land at North Beach to keep a Manhattan engagement. Over the airport Lieut. Quesada pushed the pumphandle that should lower the retractable landing gear, found to his horror that it would not budge; the wheels remained uselessly folded into the thick low wing. Lieut. Quesada picked up the speaking-tube. Try a landing on the hard runway? Climb higher and bail out? Secretary Davison looked overside, then answered: "Neither. . . . Try Mitchel. It's softer there." At Mitchel Field a few miles away Lieut. Quesada made a "fishtail" landing at 70 m.p.h. without hurting his chief or himself.

*Ability to read 8-point type (like ordinary newsprint) at 14 in. distance. Bigger numbers indicate weaker sight.

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