Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-23

making safer planes. Yesterday. max
ing airplanes was a pretty precarious
business in America: today, as Lind
bergh told me, there Is not plant that
is not booked we'll ahead with orders.
What the Guggenheim Fund has done
has been to help existing agencies 10
solve aviation problems by furnishing
money and advice It has made grants
totaling $1,098,000 for laboratories
equipment and experimental studies 10
the California Institute of Technology,
the Massachusetts Institute OF Tech
nology, Leland Stanford University, the
University of Michigan and the Univer-
sity of Washington. 1t has financed
other educational work, including lee
lures on aeronauticS in America ana
the publication of valuable tecnnlcaI
papers. The fund has organized COM
mittee of 80 members to work on the
problem of introducing aeronautlcal
education in the primary and secondary
schools. 1t granted an equipment loan
to the Western Air Express Tor the
purchase of three multi-engined planes
to be operated on a model passenger
airway between Los Angeles and San
Francisco. q route of 365 miles 1t Is
cooperating with the Weather Bureau
and the Departments of Commerce.
War and the Navy in making studies
of weather conditions and weather lore
casting as they affect aviation; and 1t
contributed to the Greenland expedition
of the University CT Michigan, which
is studying the Windstorms circulating
about the ice cap believed by some
scientists to be responsible for the
storms that eventually break out over
the Atlantic.
1t has lust announced that 1t Is about
to make thoroughgOing btudy Of every
thing that might aid flying and land
ing in fog-fog penetrating lights, alti-
meters that tell height by sound waves
and electric current, radio direction
finders, turn indicators, artificial disSi-
patton of fog, and SO ON. This work
will be full flight experimentation, and
will be done along an established air.
way.
In order to dramatize the safety of
flying, the fund arranged and financed
the air tour of Byrd's North Pole plane,
piloted by Floyd Bennett, covering 35
cities, after Byrd and Bennett had come
back from the Pole. 1t also arranged
and financed Lindbergh's famous tour
of the 48 States. During that tour
Lindbergh few % 900 miles without any
accident, and made stops in 81 cities,
arriving in each at precisely o'clock
with the single exception of Portland,
Me- where he was delayed by fog.
Those must have been nervous days
for you," suggested.
Were they!" Guggenheim said
With people writing In that I was
sending Lindbergh on a suicide trip, and
some Of the sages suggesting that his
health was giving out! AS matter of
fact, the tour was organized with every
precaution for safety"
Probably the biggest single work of
the fund will be the safe aircraft COM
petition This competition, under the
craftsmanship of Orville Wright, offers
first prize of 100000 and five prizes
of $4,000 each Ito be awarded to those
manufacturers who submit an aircraft
embodying the greatest advance in safe
flying without sacrificing the good
qualities of the machine of the present
day" Five British and four American
manufacturers and designers have al
ready put in their entries for this CONF
petition.
What the competition aims to do is
to bring together all the latest develop
mentS in safety-for example. the
Handey-Page slotted wing to prevent
stalling and that strange autogiro de-
veloped by Senior de la Cierva of Spain
"a plane equipped with horizontal,
wind-driven revolving arms which en-
able it to take off and land almost
vertically.
The rules of the competition require
that the competing planes must be able
to fly at 35 miles an hour and to glide
at 38 miles an hour, lower speeds than
today are possible for commercial planes