Monday, Dec. 06, 1926

Professional

Over the side of the S. S. Homeric, panting off Quarantine in New York Harbor, was swung a dark-bodied, white-winged seaplane labeled Moth upon its slender thorax. The wings were unfolded and passengers jammed the Homeric's rails to watch Sir Alan and Lady Cobham of England skim off to circle Manhattan and dip to a reception committee waiting on an upriver pierhead. But the Moth would not rise. Built for still-water work, her pontoons could not cope with the heavy groundswell that was running. She had to be towed forlornly ashore behind a tug.

Sir Alan's reception was no whit cooler, for all that. Encouraged by Publisher Lester D. Gardner of Aviation (weekly), he had come to the U. S. for a lecture tour in behalf of his passion and, of course, his pocketbook. His passion is commercial and civil aviation--flying for everybody--and in its service he has flown the length of Africa, the breadth of the seas between Britain and Australia (TIME, Oct. 11), without any preparation beforehand beyond ascertaining where he could pick up fuel. Interviewed, he spoke with scorn of parachutes: "Great heavens! If flying is so dangerous that you've got to use a parachute, then don't fly. ... Or get a plane with more than one engine. . . . Stunt flying isn't commercial aviation. . . . Flying is no greater step forward over driving an automobile than driving an auto was to clucking to Old Bess between the shafts of the one-horse shay."