Flights & Flyers

Dr. Brock's 730th. On Nov. 15, 1929, Dr. John David Brock, Kansas City optician, observed in his logbook that he had missed flying on only eleven days that year. For the fun of it he decided to try flying every day. Last week, with an escort including nine Army planes, John Kerr "Tex" LaGrone, who taught him to fly in 1922, and Mrs. Brock, Dr. Brock took off from Fairfax Airport for his 73Oth consecutive daily flight, a two-year record of flying in all kinds of weather. Sometimes his would be the only plane to leave the ground, so thick was the rain, snow or fog. Although critics might liken his routine to year-round-swimming or marathon tree-sitting, Dr. Brock is not publicity-hungry. He is smart enough to know that his Specialty Optical Co. does not suffer from his own conspicuousness (he was recently received by President Hoover) but he is personally reticent. Last summer he made an aerial tour to every State capital in the U. S., was never more than an hour behind a schedule worked out months in advance. Dr. Brock has now three ships: Taper Wing Waco, Monocoupe, Stinson Junior; has logged 2,924 hr. (540 hr. in the past year).

Smallest, Cheapest. It took Bert Hinkler 15 1/2-days, cost him $250 to fly an 875-lb. Avro Avian from London to Australia three years ago. One Charles Butler completed the flight last week for $170 in a Comper Swift, supposedly the tiniest airplane in the world (weight about 500 lb.). Wearing carpet slippers for comfort, carrying a tomahawk for protection in case of a forced landing, Pilot Butler flew the 11,500 mi. in 9 days, 1 hr., 32 min., beating by about an hour the record of Charles William Anderson Scott.

Plane v. Snails. In Western States, announced the Department of Agriculture, airplanes are going up to drop copper sulphate dust to kill the snails that harbor the larvae of the liver fluke which destroys sheep.

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