Industry, Sport

Vigorous, enterprising Detroit likes to be thought THE ONE centre of aviation in the U. S. It also likes to attract aircraft factories to the city. Both ends were furthered, last week, when Detroit played host to famed aviators, U. S. and foreign balloonists, airplane designers and manufacturers, 1,000 engineers, gathered to see the start of the Air Olympics.

Rich and varied was the aeronautical menu. Detroit offered something sure to please guests of every age and every turn of mind, commercial, military, technical, sporting, juvenile.

Serious-minded visitors, to whom aviation is first an industry, then a fine art, concentrated on the start of the fourth National Air Tour. Twenty-five planes, ranging from two-seater "flivvers" to trimotored, all-metal monoplanes, carefully handicapped for speed and weight, took off from Ford Airport at one-minute intervals, ready to fly 6,300 miles swiftly, safely, reliably.

Airplane manufacturers swelled with pride and anticipation, each confident his make would perform most dependably on the long flight to Texas, to California, Oregon and back through the Northwest. Manufacturer Edsel B. Ford, donor of the four-foot, silver and green marble trophy, acted as starter, watched his own new models take the air for the Texas Co. and the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. Manufacturer Eddie Stinson, not content to enter his Stinson-Detroiter with another pilot, took the controls himself, sought to repeat his 1927 victory. These counted: skill, reliability, speed, endurance, plane performance. This was the serious business of aviation.

Detroit women gathered about Pilot Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie, onetime St. Paul parachute jumper (at 17), now a practical airplane dealer in Memphis. No Elder, Earhart, Boll or Rasche, Pilot Omlie is nevertheless a FIRST WOMAN, first to compete in the reliability tours. She flies a tiny cabin plane, takes her aviation intensely.

Trans-Atlantic hero worshippers divided their attention between two crack pilots, George Haldeman, who took Ruth Elder almost to Europe, and William S. Brock, who flew almost around the world. Both pilots flew Bellancas.

What sheets are to the ship model builder, struts are to the makers of tiny airplanes, those that fly .(endurance models), and those that don't (scale models). Charles Dybvig knows his struts. Winner of the Stout National Indoor Trophy in 1927, Modeler Dybvig was one of 500 young (12-to 18-year-old) designers who competed in last week's Olympics. Propellers driven by the power of rubber bands, 500 miniature planes were launched both indoors and outdoors, in an effort to break the world's endurance record of 207 seconds. Scale models, exact replicas of airplanes, also were on exhibition. These cannot fly. Their balance, without the weight of motors, is imperfect. Sportsmen, preferring chance to certainty, reserved loudest cheers for daring balloonists, competing in the annual Gordon Bennett International Balloon Race. They cheered able Ernest Demuyter, most famed of all balloon pilots, four times (1920-22-23-24) winner of the trophy. Pilot Demuyter knew how to outwit the storm which brought death to five men in the 1923 race, made it carry him safely across the water from Belgium to Sweden. Brilliant meteorologist, in the 1924 race he stalled for time, maneuvered for direction, to avoid following the northwest breeze which all other pilots were hailing with delight. The breeze died. Demuyter was carried in the opposite direction to an easy triumph. He flew for Belgium. They cheered another veteran, Germany's Hugo Kaulen, holder of the world's endurance record for free balloons. North Russia was gripped by icy gales in the winter of 1913 when amazed peasants saw a vast bag descend from the skies. They rushed to the spot where it landed, watched Kaulen step out of his basket, cheery after 87 hours of intense cold. Hopefully, sportsmen cheered the U. S. entries. Victory this year for the U. S. would mean permanent possession of the trophy. First of the U. S. teams was the army entry, winner of the elimination contest in June (TIME, June 11), piloted by Capt. Edmund W. E. Kepner. Close behind came the entry of the American Business Club, with youthful Clarence A. Palmer of Akron, in the basket. Pilot Palmer was flying in the third free balloon event of his life. But in the elimination contest he fell only thirteen and a half miles short of the mark set by Capt. Kepner. His balloon, Goodyear VI, was built by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. for Ward T. Van Orman, winner of many a balloon race, victim of an accident in the June trials.

Pilots waited, sniffed the breeze, studied charts of the Southern States where they thought they might be blown. Every five minutes, Starter Ford released one balloon on its dangerous, conspicuously sporting venture. Free balloons may rise (by dropping ballast); they may fall (by letting gas escape). But the wind alone decides whether they shall fly north, west, south or east.