Roll Call

A biting wind whistled across Detroit City Airport one day last week as the doors of the largest airplane hangar in the world were rolled hack to reveal what U. S. aircraft manufacturers had to offer for 1932. Within the hangar some 50 air- planes of assorted sizes stood among upright pillars disguised to look like tree trunks. No decoration scheme could conceal the fact that there was more empty floor space than in any previous National Aircraft Show. The planes on display numbered only half of last year's. But the exhibitors assured each other that they, who had answered this roll call, were in business to stay; pointed with pride to advances in design, structure and finish.

Greatest disappointment of the show's opening, from a spectacular standpoint, was the absence of the new 40-passenger Ford "Pullman" developed by Ford's Chief Engineer William Benson Mayo. Last-minute work on the ship was rushed at the Ford plant in hope of having it on the hangar floor before the show closed.

Like all Fords, the big new plane is all-metal. Its wings spread no ft. From snout-like nose to ear-shaped rudder it measures 80 ft., the fuselage suggesting somewhat the flying-fish appearance of the Curtiss Condor. Inside each wing is built a 715-hp. Hispano-Suiza engine. The third engine, of 1,100 hp., is mounted atop the centre. Four passenger compartments are furnished with two standard Pullman sections each. A smoking compartment could accommodate additional passengers. There are two lavatories, a galley with gas stove.

Other noteworthy sights last week in Detroit:

P: A Bronze-lacquered Ford club plane de luxe.

P: A compact little Curtiss fighter, "the smallest plane which could be built around a 420-hp. Whirlwind," one of five built for the Navy for installation within the airship Akron.

P: A Vought Corsair with a Pratt & Whitney radial engine of 14 cylinders built in two banks of seven cylinders each, back to back, to deliver 625 hp. from 14 cylinders, with the head resistance of only seven cylinders.

P: The Guiberson Diesel engine which permits the propeller to turn freely in a glide while the engine is throttled or dead-- "free wheeling in the air."

P: A Wilford Gyroplane which looks like an Autogiro but differs in that its rotor blades are controllable from the cockpit, and rigid save for a feathering motion.

P: A glittering aquamarine, white & silver Sikorsky amphibian bought by an insurance company for William Randolph Hearst Jr. to replace one which was rammed and sunk by a fishing boat off Manteo, N. C.

P:A model airline operated by Eastern Air Transport and Transamerican Airlines. For a $5 fare, to demonstrate standard airline practice, the planes carried passengers around a 60-mi. circuit to the Ford, Wayne County, Grosse He and Walker airports.

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