Flights & Friendships

Money, glory and friendship are trying bedfellows. Money and glory are always heavily involved in transoceanic airplane flights. Few observers were greatly surprised last week to learn that the friendship of Hugh Herndon Jr. and Clyde Pangborn, like that of many another flying team, was no more.

Pilot Pangborn revealed the break. He said that more than a year before they took off on their round-the-world flight he and Socialite Herndon made a "gentleman's agreement" to divide all proceeds equally. Shortly before the flight, he declared, Herndon insisted on a 75-25 contract forbidding Pangborn to lecture or write for publication about the flight without Herndon's permission. Pangborn did not then withdraw "because all my friends would have thought I was yellow."

Other transoceanic quarrelers:

Charles A. Levine and Clarence Duncan Chamberlin.

Lewis A. Yancey and Roger Quincey Williams; over their participation in the affairs of defunct Airvia Transportation Co. Inc.

Dieudonne Coste and the late Joseph Marie Lebrix who "sickened of being a valet to Coste." Coste and Maurice Bellonte, his Paris-New York copilot, also drifted apart.

Alexander Magyar and George ("Yurga") Endres, New York-Budapest flyers; over the subsequent sale of their plane. Magyar challenged Endres to a duel which was never fought.

Wiley Post & Harold Gatty and their backer Oilman Florence C. Hall; over management of the flyers' exploitation following their round-the-world flight.

Charles Kingsford-Smith and his crew of three on the Southern Cross (Oakland-Australia) ; over division of proceeds of the flight.

Willy Rody and Capt. Christian Johanssen of the monoplane Esa which fell into the sea near Cape Race; over $1,000 net proceeds from sale of stories and pictures.

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