The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-16
Big AERO PULLMAN
RIDES LIKE FEATHER
Craft, Ready to Cross CONT
nent, Carries Sixteen in
Demonstration Here.
NO JOLTs NOR WORRIES
Start and Landing Fail to Dis
turb Passengers, Who
Marvel at Trip.

The great Lawson air pullman, the
pioneer Of a series of giant ships
which. according to present plans VIII
span the continent from New York TO
San Francisco in day and two nights
scared into the air at Mitchell Field yes
terday afternoon with cargo of four
teen newspaper men, besides the two
pilots, to show its possibilities
The passengers, sitting at ease in the
comfortable wicker chairs inside the
great cabin, were transported at ninety
miles an hour through the air with much
less fuss, vibration and discomfort than
they would have suffered in a Pullman
making forty or fifty.
The flight was made late in the after
noon. Alfred w. Lawson and one of his
pilots, Charles Cox, formerly Of the
ROYAL Air Force. were at the dual con-
troll wheels In the front of the great
cabin. Behind them, two by two,
stretched the seats, with sizeaole
aisle running between them. The ceiling
of the cabin was seven or eight feet
from the floor. In short they sat in
vehicle which seemed but little smaller
than the ordinary day coach.
Those who had come for a thrill did
not get 1t. The great plane, its two big
400 horsepower Liberty motors roaring
on either side of the cabin. shot smoothly
across the field and as smoothly
mounted into the air The earth sloped
gradually downward, only the machine
itself seemed stationary. Those who
had been up before and had been Drac-
ing themselves lest the air prove bunny
near the ground relaxed their grips on
the chairs after few moments. The
machine, with its ninety-five foot wing
spread. smoothed out the bumps so that
none could be felt.
Earth Seems to Rush By.
Throughout the fight the peculiar
phenomenon of absolute stiffness i'm
pressed itself upon those in the cabin.
All the world seemed moving. more and
more slowly as the plane left 1t below,
but the great cabin itself seemed sus-
pended in the air, motionless. Below the
blurred green seen closely as the machine
rushed just off the ground suddenly gave
way to tiny houses and little trees, roads
with automobiles crawling buglike along
them. Then az the altimeter's needle
crept slowly up the dial the earth be-
came very fiat and very patchy. Here
was a brown patch. no doubt ploughed
field, though 1t looked like a piece of
brown paper; next to 1t a green patch.
which was a fiourishing field. and then a
darker green, which was a forest
As the plane scared higher the earth
became absolutely fat. 1t seemed as II
the great plane could land anywhere
within the great spread of the horizon
without damage, for the earth below was
as fat as table and the scenery was
surely only painted on 1t. The motors
reared. This was the only thing that
linked the flight with hops in the open
machines. There was no wind beating
and tearing at the face, no chill striking
in as the higher attitudes were reached,
no helmet and goggles obscuring the
view and no heavy gloves and polar bear
clothing.
This is the first time I've ever flown
with a straw hat on" yelled THE SUN
mans neighbor in front, a young man
who had flown 200 hours with the Cana
dian army and who was quite the most
amazed of the cabin load, SO different
was the flight from those he had been
accustomed to. Meanwhile, some of the
other passengers, not content with look
ing out their own windows, got up and
walked up and down the aisle, pausing
TO peer out at the Sound, seen dimly be-
cause of the heavy canopy of clouds
above. Soon the stragglers among these
clouds were reached and surmounted
They proved very disappointing. They
were nothing but high flying fog, and
when the great plane headed into them
they vanished in the swirl of the motors
like exercised ghosts. Still higher
stretched the thicker clouds, and these
the plane did not venture into, for an
airplane can get lost as easily as a
babe in the woods.
Craft Always on Level.
Throughout the flight as the ship sped
here and there over Long Island, in to
Jamaica. UP to the border of the Sound
and back over the field, she rarely tipped
one degree to the right or left, even
when making turn The earth seemed
very obligingly to revolve instead of the
plane.
But when the plane at last turned
her nose downward after the movie man
in the back end 'had photographed the
passengers and the fiat scenery to his
hearts content, the bunch who had been
up before smiled confidently and re-
sumed their grip on the seats. Sixteen
people and a heavy machine seven or
eight tons in all, is no feather to be
dropped lightly onto the ground once
more. But Charley Cox, up front, dis
appointed them again. The plane
slided down straight toward the field
without any of those sharp banks and
splrals which make hearts leave their
accustomed places to go wandering about
the human anatomy from feet to
throats. He dropped the great plane
lightly down on the ground-so lightly,
in fact, that it was very hard to realize
that that faint jar meant land once
more. 1t was a much fainter jar than
some of the nervous passengers had pic
tured-very much fainter.
Mr.. Lawson predicted that in the
spring of 1920 he would carry twenty
five passengers per plane from New
York to Omaha at night. there shift them
TO a day Pullman and shoot them to
Salt Lake, where another sleeper would
take them UP and whirl them to Frisco.