The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-03-16

Washington, March 16.-The Air Mail incident is going. to be a witches cauldron for RooSe- welt for some time to come. Even his friends admit that it was his first big mistake.
 But out of the continued trouble, trouble, boil and bub- ble" of the air mails emerges one fact, learned at great ex- pense, but better learned now than later. That fact is: Some thing is haywire in that much vaunted and ballyhooed arm of the United States army-the Air Corps.
 "The Air Corps is ready" an- nounced General FOulOis, chief of army aviation, when he got news that his air corps was to carry the mails.
 "The army has been given a iob and it will do it," echoed General Macarthur, chief of staff.
 Later, with ten dead pilots in thirty days. the air army's job was curtailed.
 AIR HAZARDS
 Several factors are a legiti- mate excuse for the air corps. Army planes are built for speed and stunt flying, not for long steady hauls. They are too fast to make emergency landings in cow pastures, as do slower commercial planes. Army pilots are not accustomed to flying over the same stretch of terri tory every day; they did not know every hill and valley below them as did the commercial pilots.
 Much more serious, the army pilots must spend only 200 hours in the air annually. Commercial pilots fly that much every two or three months; some total co., 900 hours or more a year. They fly as co-pilots for months be- fore taking over a ship. Com mercial companies cannot afford accidents. It ruins business. So they pound home the importance of safety.
 MYSTERIOUS NEGLIGENCE
 The Army's recent accidents usually occurred when the plane had been only a few minutes in tho air. One plane ten miles out of Cheyenne had an empty gasoline tank. Only four deaths occurred while actually flying the mails-six took place in preparation. There was rank negligence somewhere.
 Giving the Army the best of the breaks-bad weather and everything else-it remains that in wartime conditions would have been worse. Carrying air mail, pilots lodged no bullets.
 It also remains that the Air Corps is in for some careful tion. This scrutiny-already started-discloses three things:
 1. The Air Corps has not had enough to do in the past.
 ?. There has been terrific jealousy among leaders of the Air Corps and other branches of the Army.
 3. Planes have been Or-
 dcrcd under circumstances
 whicli-to say the lcast-war-
 rant thorough investigations. PAMPERED PILOTS
 Two years ago Ross Collins, crusading congressman from Mississippi, discovered that polo ponies were attached to the Air Corps. He ruled them out of Army appropriations. He also has been warning against the fact that most of the Army's chief air fields have been in balmy climates. Army pilots haven't bucked up against fly ing weather of the north and east. With requirement of only 200 hours flying, the Air Corps main job is to keep amused.
 So the. rest of the Army calls it the pampered pet of the ser vice. It's ballyhoo when 600 planes flew over New Yorks theatrical district was a joke to the infantry and cavalry because it was a theatrical show.
 EE-CORNERED HATE
 Each branch of the service is jealous of the other but among ranking officers jealousy is wore. General MacArthur, chief