Down to Earth?

Manhattan's Gimbel Brothers, Inc., never one to be modest about its wares, last week overdid it. Said Gimbels, in full-page newspaper ads : "Plain down-to-earth Gimbels flies out with the best buy in the sky! Gimbels has Taylorcrafts [airplanes].

. . . Get your plane Saturday and fly to your Maryland farm on Sunday. . . . Fly to Wilkes-Barre . . . Monday. Flying is easier than driving a car. ... It costs less to run a Taylorcraft than to operate an automobile. . . . CAA records prove the safety ... 8 free hours flying instruction (enough to teach you to fly)." To airmen, who blow a gasket over such talk, this seemed the silliest ad of the month. It was not much worse than avia tion ads which have rosily pictured families flying off for weekends. But aviation buffs have learned to take such things well salted. Now, the booming light-plane in dustry is trying to sell planes, through department stores, to those who were never interested in them before. Were the planemakers and stores playing on the ignorance of their customers, overselling their wares? Many a sober booster of private flying was sure that was the case. Last week, at the third annual National Aviation Clinic in Oklahoma City, they said so.

Easy to Fly? Aviation Writer William Strohmeier said: less than 23% of those who start flying lessons ever solo; 56% quit after the second lesson.

Safer Than Autos? Colonel George C.

Price of the Army's Flying Safety Branch told the conference : flying accidents during the war destroyed more planes than the enemy. Between V-J day and Nov. i, civil aviation accidents jumped 70% over the 1944 rate, would probably continue to go up as more & more inexperienced pilots take to the air. Said Price: ". . .

The future ... is disconcerting." Cheap to Operate? The Civil Aero nautics Administration joined in the de bunking. In its latest survey on civil aviation it said: more than half of the plane owners who gave up their planes did so because of the high operating costs. A light plane such as the Taylorcraft would probably cost from $920 to $1,610 a year to run v. $500 for a car.

Fly to Wilkes-Barre? As a result of the inaccessibility of airports, said the CAA, and the relatively slow cruising speed and limited range of light planes, the net time saved over the automobile on short trips would be slim. Sternly the CAA concluded: if manufacturers repeat their prewar mistake of overselling the light plane, the demand will be "washed out in a wave of disillusion."

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