Graf Zeppelin's Return

Just as the German airship Graf Zeppelin hovered over her home port Friedrichshafen last week, the German Lloyd seaship Columbus moored fast to her Manhattan dock. Aboard her was James Leslie Kincaid, retired brigadier-general of the New York National Guard. And while German crowds howled their hochs at the Graf Zeppelin's safe, record-breaking return, General Kincaid growled his grouch at U. S. aviation.

He had attended the recent International Aero Exhibition at Berlin. No U. S. aircraft were there, only two Whirlwind motors hidden in foreign planes and a picture book of other U. S. motors and machines. General Kincaid was ashamed. "I felt," said he last week, "like turning up my coat collar and slinking away." He noted too that "Germany has 60 cities linked by air transport now. Over this network is maintained a constant fast transport of mail, passengers and freight. No other country in the world has anything to compare with it."

But General Kincaid, who now is professionally director of three airways systems operating between Boston and New York, New York and Montreal, and Albany and Cleveland,* knew well that he was grumbling rhetorically.

Last year U. S. commercial planes flew close to 6,000,000 miles, German planes about 5,750,000. This year U. S. planes will have flown nearly 12,000,000 miles. Because the area is 20 times as large as Germany's, there is vaster opportunity for the expansion of the U. S. industry.

The Graf Zeppelin, now Germany's most famed airship, on her return flight from the U. S. to Germany, covered the 4,500 miles in 71 hr., 12 min. That was 10 hours faster than any of the four other trans-Atlantic airship trips. The record:

Hrs. Mins.

Graf Zeppelin (eastward) . 71 12

Graf Zeppelin (westward) . 111 30

R34 (eastward, 1919) .... 108 12

Los Angeles (westward).. 81 17

The British R-34's fast flight was from New York to England, and over a windblown distance 800 miles less than the Graf Zeppelin's return trip./-

That return journey last week was terrific for the airship's crew. East of Newfoundland they headed into a gale. It threatened to crack up the boat. Dr. Hugo Eckener headed into the wind and slowed his motors. The wind blew him backwards at the rate of 32 1/2 ft. a second.

Eventually he gained headway towards the Bay of Biscay. There again a storm bumped him. But he shouldered through it, over-fog-clouded Nantes, over hazy Tours, over Lake Constance. The Hallowe'en moon watched him. And as the sun rose for All Saints' Day he dipped his Graf Zeppelin's nose down towards the howling German crowds and his hangars at Friedrichshafen.

*Colonial Air Transport, Western Airways, Canadian-Colonial Western Airways. Also, he is president of the American Hotels Corp.

/-The Cunarder Mauretania, fastest ship, has crossed the Atlantic in 122 hours.