10-F to Honolulu

From Paradise Cove, scene of many a moonlight picnic on the Marin County shore of San Francisco Bay, six big navy seaplanes taxied out with a mighty roar one noon last week. With their 30 officers & crew they comprised Patrol Squadron 10-F, bound for Honolulu's Pearl Harbor. Except for excited San Franciscans who lined the city's hills to watch the takeoff, there was little commotion over what was to be the longest formation flight ever attempted--2,400 mi. The Navy did not think of it as a remarkable flight but a routine transfer of equipment and personnel by air. On San Francisco Bay weather was almost too good. Loaded seaplanes need a brisk headwind or a slightly choppy sea to help them pull up from the water. The ships of 10-F huge Consolidated sesqui-planes with 100-ft. wingspread and twin Wright Cyclone engines, were each loaded to the gunwales. After a half hour's fruitless taxiing over glassy water Plane No. 4 hoisted herself into the sky. Thirty minutes later the flagplane piloted by Commander McGinnis got off. For nearly two hours they circled over the bay while the remaining four charged up & down and smaller planes taxied around to kick up a swell. Finally a shout went up from the bridge of the U. S. S. Gannet, where stood Admiral David Foote Sellers, Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Fleet: "He's up!" Plane No. 5 had found a breeze off a point of land, had climbed on it. At five-minute intervals her sister ships followed her and then in triad formation Squadron 10-F hummed out through the Golden Gate, bent a great circle course over six patrol boats anchored at 300 mi. intervals across the Pacific. Next morning the commanding officer of the naval station at Pearl Harbor received a radio message: "REQUEST PERMISSION TO LAND AND MOOR AT ASSIGNED BEACH. . . . MCGINNIS." At noon, just 24 hr. after leaving San Francisco, the squadron roared over Diamond Head and Waikiki to a pretty landing on Pearl Harbor and a thunderous welcome from the proud folk of happy Honolulu. There was little for the officers to report. All had gone well. Plane No. 5 had been separated from the squadron by fog a couple of times, but had resumed her place without difficulty. The squadron's fuel tanks still contained enough fuel to carry it on to Midway Island, some 1,200 miles westward.

Unionizer Out

The man who organized the Air Line Pilots Association is a big, fiery six-footer named David Louis Behncke. He was born on a Wisconsin farm. During the War he was a crack bomber and machine gunner. Today he holds every possible military and civilian pilot's license, has some 8,324 hr. on his log with never a serious crackup. For five years he flew the mail west out of Chicago for United Air Lines. Two years ago Pilot Behncke whipped the pilots' union together from the ranks of the ineffectual National Air

Pilots' Association. At first his idea of A. F. of L. affiliation was scorned by most flyers, who feared a loss of professional prestige by rubbing shoulders with locomotive engineers. But after Errett Lob ban Cord cut pilots' wages the Association solidified, grew to 675 strong. Last week President Behncke was out of a job.

Just why he was out of a job was in dispute. United Air Lines said he had taken a leave of absence last autumn to attend NRA hearings in Washington, that he had neither returned to work nor communicated with the company, thereby automatically ousting himself. Pilot Behncke said he reported for work at Chicago Dec. 22, when he was called into the office of Vice President D. B. Colyer and discharged for four reasons: 1) he had not secured proper permission to attend NRA hearings; 2) the company assumed he had severed connections; 3) his activities and utterances in Washington made it awkward to have him on the payroll; 4) he had preferred charges of intimidation against Vice President E. P. Lott and Chief Pilot H. T. ("Slim") Lewis. The subject of Behncke's Washington activities remained unsettled. It was raised when big airlines replaced obsolete 110-m.p.h. planes with new airliners flying more than 150 m.p.h. Since the faster speed would make pilots travel the same distance in less time than before, they demanded to be paid on a mileage rather than hourly basis. (On the per-hour basis, pilots' pay had averaged $6,500 a year.) Loth to sacrifice the economic advantage gained by speed, the airlines refused. The Pilots Association threatened a strike, called it off. submitted its case to the National Labor Board. Last week Pilot Behncke, no longer eligible to head his union since he is not an active pilot, complained to the Labor Board about his discharge by United.

Airmail Showdown

Ever since the passage of the McNary-Watres Act (1930) there has been a covert airmail "scandal" in Washington. That law changed the method of government payments to airmail contractors. More important, it severely circumscribed open bidding by operators for airmail contracts, by giving the Postmaster General huge authority to extend existing routes as he saw fit. Postmaster General Brown limited bidding to companies which had six months' experience in night flying. He called that "protecting the equities of the pioneer operator," but its effect was to sew up the airmail map for big companies which received thousands of miles in route extensions, through territory which hopeful small fry had been flying for months. "General" Brown, No. 1 politico of the Hoover Administration, openly advocating monopoly, helped to concentrate the airmail system into the mighty hands of the so-called "aviation trust," United Air Lines, American Airways and the North American Aviation group (Eastern Air, Western Air and T. A. T.). Unlucky independents fumed, raged, threatened and gradually died off or were swallowed up. In Republican Congress after Congress Democrats launched airmail investigations but. with "General" Brown solidly in office, they resulted in nothing more than impotent yelps of protest. Last week a Democratic Senate, with backing of a Democratic Administration, first turned its attention to airmail matters. Investigation was started by the special committee headed by Alabama's smart little Hugo LaFayette Black who had rooted out a mess of unsavory facts about ocean mail contracts. What made this inquiry different from the others, what put it on the front pages of the Press was the political fact that at last the Democrats had the power and the will to do something about the "dirt" turned up against Republican jobholders. For once the independent operators had a sympathetic audience for a recital of their familiar grievances. Typical testimony: P:"General" Brown, his Assistant Warren Irving Glover, Colonel Paul Henderson of United Air Lines and Mabel Walker Willebrandt, then Washington lobbyist for American Airways, helped draw up the McNary-Watres bill and insert its monopolistic provision. P:In two years the Postmaster General gave American Airways 4,415 mi. of route extensions largely in the Southwest, 2,516 mi. to the North American group, all without competitive bidding. Colonel Henderson, whose United system was not in line for such extensions, testified: "This seemed so contrary to the spirit of the law . . . that I took it as a joke at first, but discovered it to be a serious plan." P:Thomas H. McKee, representing the Wedell-Williams Line, an independent service operated out of New Orleans by famed Pilot "Jimmy" Wedell & Backer Harry P. Williams, related his efforts to get a contract. After repeated rebuffs he caught wind of a meeting of airline operators at the Post Office Building, and "crashed the gate." Before he was ousted, he found a roomful of men under authority to draw up an airmail map. American Airways later got the mail contract for the route flown by Wedell-Williams. P:Erie P. Halliburton, operator of defunct Southwest Air Fast Express ("SAFEWAY" lines), said he and William Gibbs McAdoo persistently bid to carry the mail for $3.67 a pound less than the Government was paying; that the Postmaster General forced him to sell out to American Airways--which he did at a $500,000 profit. P:Hainer Hinshaw, onetime American Airways lobbyist, said Postmaster Brown had induced his company to agree not to bid on the proposed Savannah-Atlanta-Memphis-Tulsa route, since the Postoffice wanted to "take care of" Robertson Air Lines, which had been crudely frozen out of a St. Louis-New Orleans contract by one of the American Airways extensions. P:Daniel Miller Sheaffer, executive of Pennsylvania Railroad and T. A. T., had an uncomfortable time with the committee. He admitted that Postmaster Brown had promised a transcontinental mail contract if T. A. T. would merge with Western Air Express. Result: the merged company, Transcontinental & Western Air, now flies the mail. After a noon recess Mr. Sheaffer returned with amended testimony. Chairman Black shot at him: "Where'd you go for lunch?" The witness flushed, stammered, admitted he had lunched with officials involved in the transaction under investigation. Later Mr. Sheaffer had to resort frequently to a briefcase full of papers to refresh his memory. Chairman Black in terrupted: "Suppose you let us take a look at those records. Mr. Sheaffer. Just hand them up here. All of them." Aghast, the witness obeyed. A committee investigator ruffled through the papers, finally-handed one to the chairman. In a few minutes press wires were burning with a startling fact which was, however, wholly irrelevant to the investigation. The fact: Charles A. Lindbergh received 25,000 shares of T. A. T. stock (worth $250,000), plus an option on 25,000 more at the same price, plus his $10,000-a-year salary, upon becoming chairman of T. A. T.'s technical committee in 1928. A letter of transmittal from Clement Melville Keys, then T. A. T. president, advised Colonel Lindbergh to sell part of his stock but not to handle much of it in his own name. The stock rose after Lindbergh's association with the company was publicized.* P:But biggest, most insinuating headlines were made by a Postoffice stenographer named James Maher. He testified that he had burned 24 drawers of "General" Brown's correspondence in the Post Office Building furnace a few days before the Postmaster General went out of office. He said he had been ordered to do so by Mr. Brown's secretary, Kenneth MacPherson, and that some of the files related to mail contracts./-

Miami Meet

Despite its high-sounding title Miami's All-American Air Races rarely break important world records. But the City of Miami and its archangel Henry Doherty see that visiting pilots have fun, and they, in turn, receive a good show and good publicity. Last week's meet, the sixth annual, ran true to form, except that for once the weather was wholly good.

The meet was prefaced by a 220-mi. cross-country derby (Orlando to Miami) for sportsmen pilots. Ingeniously planned by Tycoon Doherty's aviation adviser. Col. Clarence Marshall Young, the contest was an accuracy test instead of a straightaway speed dash. Each pilot was expected to fly by way of three control stops at exactly the rated cruising speed of his plane. Wise Colonel Young knew that some pilots would rush ahead at top speed only to loaf around Miami until the precise minute for a perfectly timed finish. To outsmart them he secretly made the Fort Lauderdale control stop the official finish. Of 59 starters the winner was Lawrence P. Sharpies of Philadelphia's up-&-coming Pylon Club, who landed within 32 seconds of his schedule.

Much of the race program consisted of straight showmanship by Army, Navy and Marine squadrons. There were rope throwers, clowns, trick bicyclists, and a fan dancer who, caught in the backwash of a propeller, turned out to be an unlovely male.

Since most of the races involved small planes, no important speed records were broken. Fastest time of the meet was registered by "Jimmy" Wedell who, in a free-for-all, had to throttle his world's-record-breaking plane down to 232 m. p. h. to make it look as if he were in the same meet. Jack Wright of Utica, N. Y. made a new world's record for light cabin planes, 167 m. p. h. Lee Miles of Los Angeles barely missed breaking the single-seater record with 194.5 m. p. h.

*Last week Vice Admiral Suetsugu, Commander of the Japanese Fleet, was quoted as sayin that Japan was preparing to defend her self against a U. S. ''policy of hostility encircling Japan by every possible means. . . ." One of the "hostile" acts cited by the Admiral was the leisurely (light of the Lindberghs over the Kurile Islands in 1931. Said Admiral Suetsugu: "I may be mistaken but I think it is possible they were spying. . . ." /-Penalty for destroying official documents: $2,000 line, three years in prison.

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