Evening star., 1942-05-31
Air Freight Trains
Among Dreams Of
Auto Engineers
Combination Highway
And Flying Machines
Also Visuulized
BY DAVID J. WILKIE,
Wide World Automotive Editor.

DETROIT, May 30.-The war and
the things the Nations automotive
industry has shown itself able to do
In producing its required implements
have precipitated some highly imag-
inative thinking among the indus
try's engineers and master me-
chanicS.
Were it not for the fact that these
same experts already have put into
mass production giant Army tanks
and bomber planes weighing 80 tons
and upward, and the highly refined
aircraft engines, some of the think
ing might appear fantastic.
There is, for example, the sug-
gestion of William B. Stout, auto
motive engineer and aviation pio-
neer, that the postwar motor We
hicle may be a combination road
and flight" machine, and the picture
of four-unit aerial freight trains"
conjured up by Col. Edward S. Evans
long identified with the aviation in
dustry and sometimes called the
father of gliding in the United
States"
Bill Stout admits his thinking is
revolutionary, but he maintains
that without such thinking there
would have been little mechanical
progress and aviation would have
been stillborn.
Second in World War.
Evans, born SO years ago in ThaX-
ton, Va, was captain in the Quar-
terma&er's Corps in the First World
War. He is president of the Evans
Product Co.. former president of
the Lockheed company, was one of
the organizers of the Stinson Air
craft Corp, was responsible for put
ting the first retractable landing
gear on airplaneS and pioneered air
passenger service as a director of
National Air Transport.
Not very long ago his company.
specializing in loading and shipping
devices, brought out the auto
railer train" which runs with equal
facility on highways or rails.
Col. Evans now visualiZes thou
SiSting of a transport plane or air
locomotive towing three transport
gliders, to carry something like
100000 pounds of freight at a speed
Of about 80 miles an hour.
We are going to be able to trans
port this freight in one-tenth the
time of the average train haul and
in per cent of the time of the aver
age ship haul at costs lower than
railroad costs or truck COSTS" he
asserts.
Big Advantage Seen.
All this sounds extremely fanci-
full, of course, but listen further to
Col. Evans:
Use of motorless gliders as freight
carrying units has a unique advan-
tage. Such craft could be cut loose
by the pilot by a trigger release
OF the tow line. This would permit
one or more gliders to land at any
city to which freight in those par
ticular gliders might be consigned.
The rest of the train would con-
tinue its flight without even slowing
down"
To this somewhat spectacular
thinking. Col. Evans adds:
An Amy of 100000 men with
light and heavy equipment could be
landed, if necessary. in Kamchatka
or Honolulu in 46 hours by the use
OF the proper air transport"
No less air-minded is the 62-vear-
old Illinois born Stout, currently ex-
perimenting with 5OO-pound auto
mobile whose 30-horsepower hori-
zontally opposed air-cooled engine is
designed to yield so miles to the gal
Ion of gasoline.
Stout, who built the famous Ford
tri-motored planes in the late 2Os.
sees a postwar economy built en-
tirely around aviation with over
night transatlantic flights COM
monplace.