International Races

Up from Chicago's Curtis-Wright-Reynolds Airport at 2:02 a. m. one morning last week shot Lieut.-Commander Frank Hawks in a big all-metal Northrup mono- plane, powered by a 700 h. p. Wright engine, the first 14-cylinder, two-row radial engine in commercial use. At 4:22 p. m. a day later he set his plane down on the same field, climbed stiffly out to the cheers of opening day spectators at the Chicago Daily News-sponsored International Air Races. ''I'm not a bit tired," said he, despite the fact that he had just flown 4,500 mi.--from Chicago to Los Angeles to Seattle and back to Chicago--in flying time of 24 hr., 25 min.

Stunts. Speedster Hawks's flight gave the Air Races audience something to think about, but most of the sensations in store for them were visceral rather than cerebral. Lieutenant Tito Falconi, young Ital- ian stunter who last fortnight broke his own world's endurance record for upside-down flying with a 3 hr., 8 min. flight from St. Louis to Chicago, did a topsy-turvy climbing bank and "dead stick'' dive. Major Ernst Udet, famed German War ace, sent his Flamingo teetering crazily across the field, on the third try neatly snatched a handkerchief off the ground with a wing tip. Johnny Miller looped an autogiro at 1,000 ft.

Jumps. H. E. ("Spud") Manning hugged a 25-lb. sack of flour in his arms when he baled out at 14,000 ft. in one of his famed delayed-opening parachute jumps. His tail of flour against the pale blue sky made him look like a comet's ghost as he plummeted down a full two miles. Not until he was within 1,000 ft. of the ground did he jerk his rip cord, break his 147-111.p.h. fall, soar down to a perfect two-leg landing in midfield.

A strong west wind made parachute jumpers trying for spot landings in a 100-ft. circle bale out at 1.500 ft. behind the stands. Joe Crane of Roosevelt Field, L. I. and Joe Brown of Cincinnati floated in to tie for first place at 54 in. from the circle.

Crashes. Second day brought a stiff wind, bumpy air and the meet's first fatality. Just after noon 27-year-old Roy Liggett of Omaha went up for a trial run. Nosing his plane into a 25-mile wind, he was making 200 m.p.h. at about 500 ft. when his left wing suddenly dropped off. The little red racer rolled over, dove cock-pit-deep into a cornfield. The fabric ripped from a wing of the yellow-&-red G. B. racer as Florence E. Klingensmith, 26, of Minneapolis was driving it around a pylon. The plane tottered into a ravine throwing Miss Klingensmith to death in sight of the grandstands.

Speed Record. Lee Gehlbach of Detroit took up his Wasp-engined Wedell- Williams Special for a try at Major James H. Doolittle's land plane speed record of 294.38 m.p.h., failed to crack it. Another Wedell-Williams behaved differently when its designer, one-eyed James R. Wedell, took it up. Over a three-kilometer course he definitely broke the land plane record at 305.33 m.p.h.

$10,000 Free-for-All. Seven started for the $10,000 free-for-all prize. Three finished, with redoubtable Jimmy Wedell winning at 245.95 m.p.h. in the same Wedell-Williams which Mae Haizlip nosed over the previous day after winning the women's free-for-all.

Balloons. Seven vast balloons surged at moorings in Curtiss-Wright-Reynolds Field. Seven brace of aeronauts prepared to mount them for a tussle with the winds. A gust ripped the German entry of Fritz von Opel & Erich Deku. The other six rose fulsomely to strive for the James Gordon Bennett Balloon Race trophy.

At Kingston, Mich., about 225 mi. from Chicago, Dr. Erich Koerner & Richard Scheutz, Germans, descended into a watery ditch. At Albion, Mich., about 213 mi. from Chicago, Louise and Eleanor Hall, daughters of an Albion College professor, were summoned to interpret for two for- eigners who had come down in a balloon: Georges Ravaine & Georges Blanchet, Frenchmen.

Still sailing northwards were: Ward T. Van Orman & Frank A. Trotter (U. S.); Lieut.-Commander Thomas G. W. Settle (last year's winner) & Charles H. Kendall (U. S.) who wirelessed that they were approaching Lake Huron; Philippe Quersin & Martial van Schelle (Belgium); Captain Franciszek Hynek & Lieut. Zbigniew Burzynski (Poland). A steamer sighted an unrecognized balloon over the Straits of Mackinac.

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