Flights & Flyers

Joy Ride-- At St. Ansgar, Iowa last week were gathered 2,000 people to see the town's first Fourth of July celebration in 20 years. They saw a plane lose a piece of wing fabric, spin dizzily into the town's main street, burst spectacularly into flames. Incinerated were the pilot and four joyriders, one a woman.

Hen Hawk. On the grounds of an insane asylum at Ransom. Pa. the head farmer noticed his chickens scurry suddenly for cover. A hen hawk, he thought, must be about. Overhead he saw what looked like a huge predatory bird. The "hen hawk'' landed, turned out to be the sailplane Albatross II in which Richard du Pont made a world's record distance flight fortnight ago (TIME, July 9). Out stepped Lewin Bennitt Barringer, Philadelphia socialite, to explain he had just soared 80 mi. from Elmira. N. Y. where the fifth annual contest of the Soaring Society of America closed last week.

Ferry. Fourth of July traffic jams had no terrors last week for the Navy's Lieut. Harry B. Temple. Taking off from Washington July 3 in an experimental scout plane, he "ferried" it across the U. S., delivered it at noon July 4 to the Naval Air Station at San Diego. Hopping a commercial plane east, he was back at his Washington desk July 5.

Optimist. From Toronto, where he had attended the Optimists Clubs convention, flew Alex Mokher last week, bound for Florida and home. With him in the family cabin plane were his wife, his daughters Marjorie, 16. Dorothy, 9. Over Lexington, Ky., Father Mokher lost his bearings, decided to ask directions. Circling low over a country store, he slowed his motor, shouted to the proprietor. To hear better he circled lower, grazed a tree, struck some telephone wires, crashed. Of the Mokhers only Dorothy survived.

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