Foolproof Planes

In one day last week, two private flying accidents killed five persons. In Milwaukee, four Chicagoans in a rented Stinson Junior plunged to death when the plane fell off in a flatspin from 200 ft. while circling to land. In New Brunswick, N. J. a 22-year-old youth perished when an

OX5 Bird went into a flatspin at 800 ft., crashed.

In the U. S. someone is killed in a private flying accident two days out of every three. At least 70% of these fatal accidents are caused by stalls and accompanying spins. Because the Federal Government in the last eight years has spent some $50,000,000 on aids to avigation but not one cent to make the airplane itself safer, Director Eugene Luther Vidal of the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1933 launched a program to foster development of a safe, cheap (about $700) airplane for the unskilled pilot (TIME, Dec. 18, 1933).

Last week, with the first public demonstration of two "foolproof" planes which neither stall nor spin, Director Vidal thought that at last he had something. From Detroit City Airport, where the first All American Aircraft Show since 1932 was attracting scant interest, he and many another observer trooped over to nearby Wayne County Airport to see demonstrated the plane invented by a moon-faced youth named Dean B. Hammond, who has been tinkering airplanes since his graduation from University of Michigan in 1930.

The Hammond Model Y, produced at Ypsilanti, Mich, and described by its inventor as the safest airplane ever built, is a trim-looking low-wing monoplane with a coupe-cabin seating two persons side by side. Mounted at the rear of the cabin is a pusher propeller powered by a 4-cyl., 95-h. p., air-cooled Menasco motor. Instead of the conventional fuselage, the plane has an outrigger tail, a "tailwheel" located in front to prevent nosing over in takeoffs and landings.

Easy to operate, the Hammond can be landed merely by pulling the stick all the way back at 200 ft.--a maneuver invariably fatal in conventional craft. When desired it can even land by itself, hands off, with no more of a bump than one gets with a parachute.

Last week Director Vidal and many an-other oldtime flyer, watching the ship's demonstration, shuddered and all but covered their eyes when the little craft was landed from a full stall at 50 ft. and later glided deliberately into the ground without leveling off. In both cases the plane clung to the earth without bouncing, stopped in its own length without nosing over when the pilot slammed on the brakes.

Although it won the Department of Commerce design competition for 15 planes to be used by aeronautical inspectors, the Hammond may not get the actual contract, it developed last week, because, while it meets all the rigid safety requirements, it fails by 15 m. p. h. to meet the speed requirement of no m. p. h. This Inventor Hammond hopes to remedy in a second model now building. Contract price for the Hammond is $3,190 each, which includes experimental and development costs of the initial model.

Even more radical in design than the Hammond is the tailless plane developed in California by an oldtime test pilot named Waldo Deane Waterman. Tall, sandy-haired, pipe-smoking Inventor Waterman, previously known for his experiments with a low-wing tailless monoplane called the Waterman Whatsit, has produced as his new model a high-wing ship called the Arrowplane. This highly unconventional design features V-shaped wings which sweep back to tapering tips on which are mounted vertical rudder fins. The ailerons are so rigged that they also serve as elevators, thus simplifying control. The chunky two-place cabin has windows of a flexible fireproof fibre known as plastacelle. Like the Hammond, it has a Menasco motor and pusher propeller at the rear, a third wheel in front. Because this wheel is hooked up with the rudder, the plane may be steered on the ground like an automobile, a decided advantage when taxiing in a crosswind.

Arrowplane's speed exceeds requirements by 4 m. p. h. It lands at 40 m. p. h., stops in 30 ft., gets 13 1/2 mi. per gal. of fuel, can supposedly be flown with safety by a novice after two hours' instruction. Secretly tested for six months on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert, the strange-looking craft was last week publicly demonstrated for the first time in Los Angeles, where its unconventional behavior alarmed experienced observers until they became used to it. "It leaped into the air," wrote one correspondent, "like a chicken going over a fence."

"We tried for two weeks to spin it and couldn't," said Director Vidal in officially accepting the plane for his department. Even had they succeeded, the Arrowplane would have righted itself automatically after two turns.

"This," grinned lanky Inventor Waterman after his demonstration, "is the plane that designers said was impossible." He has been experimenting with airplane design for 25 of his 41 years, has spent three years on his present ship, believes it could retail for $800 if produced in quantity.

Director Vidal, sticking stubbornly to his thesis that a plane at such a price is possible, told a conference of the National Association of Aviation Editors last week that the development of a $700 plane had not materialized because the $500,000 allotment promised by PWA had been withheld as a result of the activities of an aircraft manufacturers' lobby. Many light plane manufacturers believe Mr. Vidal is "chasing rainbows," resent his "flivver plane" program because they feel it causes sales resistance to the present product.

One manufacturer, Edward Porterfield of Kansas City, undertook last week to tell Mr. Vidal "the facts of life about the aircraft business." Mr. Porterfield's complaint: "I'm strong for the $700 plane when it comes, but we haven't got it and I don't believe in kidding the public instead of inspiring confidence in present planes."

Director Vidal: "Our first concern is not with price but with safety. The price . . . will take care of itself."

Propeller Brake

Most modern aircraft use two kinds of brakes: wheel-brakes on the ground, and "air brakes" (wing flaps) to reduce flying speed. Last week a third kind of brake was being tested on Pan American Airways' big transoceanic Clipper Ships.

Designed chiefly for use with multi-motored equipment when a motor cuts out, the new brake stops the propeller from spinning free, prevents vibration. In case of engine failure caused by a broken part, the propeller brake prevents further damage.

In normal landings propeller brakes increase lift, reduce landing speed by removing the air turbulences set up by windmilling airscrews. Thus "dead stick" landings, once considered hazardous, will probably become commonplace in future. The propeller brake uses hydraulic cylinders and Raybestos-lined brake bands, was developed by Engineering Inspector Raymond B. Quick of the Bureau of Air Commerce.

Glide

Taking off from Germany's Wasserkuppe one day last week, a glider pilot named Ludwig Hoffmann soared 500 kilometers (about 300 mi.) to Oskovice, Czechoslovakia, broke the world's soaring distance record of 375 kilometers (about 225 mi.) held by German Pilot Heini Dittmar.

*Of the 17 planes exhibited in the world's largest airplane hangar, most newsworthy was the Beechcraft, a four-place stagger-wing cabin biplane with such ultra-modern refinements as retractable landing-gear, controllable-pitch propeller, wing flaps. First plane ever built with a 4-to-1 speed ratio, Beechcraft cruises 202 m. p. h., lands at 50 m. p. h., costs $13,500. Notably absent from the show were Curtiss-Wright. Bellanca, many another old-line concern including Stinson, which rented 5,000 ft. of floor space, exhibited nothing. Cheapest plane shown was the tiny two-place Taylor Cub ($1,490). Porterfield showed a $2,000 monoplane, Rearwin a streamlined 144-m. p. h. Speedster in the $3,000 class.

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