Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-12
WASHINGTON AIRPORT PLANS
IN HANDS OF EXPERT AVIATOR
Capt. Thomas Carroll Will
Supervise Design to
Insure Safety.s
Terminal Addition, Now Un-
der Construction, viii
Cost $500, 900.

Technical design, from the safety
standpoint, of the new Washington Air
Terminal, now being constructed by a
$500, 900 expansion of Washington Air
port, at the south end of Highway
Bridge, has been placed in the hands
of Capt. Thomas Carroll, Washington
aviator and aeronautical engineer, who
ranks as one of the best pilots this
country has produced.
Capt. Carroll, technical adviser of the
Federal Aviation Corporation, which is
backing the project, has been elected as
vice president of Washington Air Ter
minals Corporation, in direct charge OF
the program.
A student at Georgetown Law College,
in this city, when the United States en-
tered the World War, Capt. Carroll has
spent most of his life since that time
engaged in alrplane test work, the most
hazardous branch of peace-time avia-
ton He not only has been called upon
to face great dangers in the testing OF
unknown types of planes, but has had
to manufacture dangers deliberately so
that they may be studied with the eye
of science, with view to circumventlng
them.
Served as Pilot in France.
As a lieutenant in the American Air
Force in France, Carroll was one Of the
few acceptance pilots in charge Of test
flying new planes delivered to the Army.
In day before the use of parachuteS
became customary, this work often sug-
gested an enormous question mark.
He won such renown in France that
! in 1920 he was appointed chief test pis:t
Of the national advisory committee for
aeronautics and manager OF its flight
research section at Langley Field, Va,
which he organized and conducted for
nearly nine years.
The list of his achievements at Lang
| ley Field is long. Once he took up for
test an unbalanced plane, with boxes
of sand on the tips of each wing, ar
ranged so they could be dropped by pull
ing cord. The first box went over
without difficulty, but the second re-
fused to bulge and the sand, slightly
There appeared to be no possibility OF
landing without cracking up. He
climbed and then put the ship through
| such a series of acrobatics that observ-
ers feared it would fly apart. Enough
sand was dislodged to permit landing
at high speed.
Intricate Problems Studied.
Carroll also experimental with the
BLACK moment to determine what
caused a pilot to lose him eyesight in a
prolonged fast turn and to find means
of preventing this dangerous blindness
! He found it could be prevented by YELL
ing at the top of the lungs or by wear
ing tightly-laced polo players belt
either method serving to retain blood
in the head during the terrific GEN.
trifugal moment resulting from the
| turn.
He few long distances at not more
than feet above the ground and later
above the water to determine the effect
of such proximity between plane and
earth on the air currents and lift" At
| such times q SneeZe or an involuntary
muscular witch might have caused
disaster
Was Chosen Test Pilot.
When the Guggenheim fund for the
promotion Of aeronautics offered a
S100, 900 prize for the safest plane de-
sign, Capt. Carroll was selected as test
pilot. The competition resulted this
week in the awarding of the prize to
the Curtis Tanager.
Recently Capt Carroll had made an
intensive study of the general airport
situation in the National Capital and
1t was largely upon his recommendation
that the development of Washington
Airport was determined upon. The field
is to be developed purely as a passenger
and mail terminal, with all student
training, servicing and shopwork trans
ferred to the company's thousand acre
airport near Alexandria, Va.