Pretold Story

When the wheels of the big white Lock- heed Winnie Mae kicked a cloud of Roosevelt Field dust into the sunset one evening last week, they ended a story already read and reread by every newsreader in the land. Any urchin in the crowd of 10,000 that milled about the field could have told how the plane had left Solomon Beach near Nome two days before on the last laps of its round-the-world flight (TiME, July 6); how Navigator Harold Gatty had miraculously escaped serious injury when the propeller kicked him; how one-eyed Pilot Wiley Post had whipped the plane off a concrete avenue and out of Edmonton, Canada, that morning, re-fuelled at Cleveland less than four hours ago. Only the final sentence remained to be written with the actual landing. That was the Winnie Mae's time: S days 15 hr. 51 min. around the world, a record.* The tale of the flight being already thrice-told, the news yet to be created was that of the hysterical reception at the field, an event which the Nassau County Police saved from stereotype by slugging jaws and cracking pates among the crowd.

As the two exhausted airmen were swept across the field to a hangar, radio announcers fought to get near them with microphones, begged them almost tearfully to "say something." Examples:

Announcer: Do you feel very tired, Wiley?

Post: Oh, not very tired. I am getting rested now.

Announcer: Isn't it pretty nice to see the wife? . . . How do you do, Mrs. Post. What do you think of all this?

Mrs. Post: I think it's wonderful.

Manhattan newsmen, confronting the two flyers in "mass interview" in a suite at the swanky Ritz Carlton, experienced somewhat the same difficulty in thinking up questions to which they did not already know the answers. Pilot Post, still deaf from the roar of the motor, sprawled on a divan and let Gatty do the answering. What percentage of time was spent in the air? Gatty did not know. A newsman told him it was about 52%. Did they drink anything to keep awake on the flight? No. Post touches neither coffee nor tobacco. Doesn't he drink Choctaw beer in Oklahoma? He might drink more if they made it better. Did they sense the guidance and protection of some superior being? Here one of the reporters suggested that they all pool their wits and try to suggest one significant question. The plan was not a great success.

Soon after the end of the flight, the business of making the flyers official heroes and their families great personages was in full swing. They were paraded, be-medalled, feted, photographed within an inch of their lives. (They had engaged as publicity counsel the firm of Bruno & Blythe.) Their wives were included at many of the functions, including the luncheon given by Mayor Walker, where Arthur Brisbane quoted Paul Block as saying: "It must have been hard to fly away from either of those two ladies." Also there was Col. Lindbergh ("Only one Christopher Columbus, only one Lindbergh."--Brisbane). But the wives found most enjoyment in shopping, a procedure closely followed by the Press which was able to report that Mrs. Post wore a size 16 dress, Mrs. Gatty a 14.

Over the weekend, flyers & wives and the backer of the flight, modest, self-effacing Florence (not Frank) C. Hall, were taken a-yachting aboard Tycoon William H. Todd's Saelmo. In the course of the cruise Mrs. Post & Mrs. Gatty were presented with the first orchids either had ever seen. Next day Post & Gatty went to Washington to be White House guests for luncheon. Later in the week they and Backer Hall were to fly to Oklahoma, Post's and Hall's home, to let Chickasha lionize them.

The woman whose name had been flown to fame the world over, herself flew from Oklahoma to Long Beach, Calif, with her infant son to join her husband. She is Mrs. Winnie Mae Hall Fain, 24, only daughter of Oilman Hall who said one of his reasons for backing the flight was "to let the whole world pay honor to her."

Fokker Out?

When General Motors bought control of Fokker Aircraft Corp. two years ago (TIME, May 27, 1929) it acquired also the proudly erratic genius of Anthony Herman Gerard ("I-do-it-myself") Fokker. The idiosyncrasies of this impetuous Dutchman were bound to prove irritating to G. M.'s conservative businessmen, but in the light of brilliant prospects that was looked upon as a natural and slight cost of genius.

Fokker fortunes have not been happy of late. The much-touted 32-passenger F-j2 turned out to be a white elephant. The F-14 mail & passenger job showed no speed; the flying boat and amphibian did not qualify for Government approval; construction on Army and Coast Guard contracts had been neglected; finally--but this could not fairly be thrown up to "Tony" Fokker--there was the unfortunate aftermath of the Rockne crash (TIME, April 13) when the Department of Commerce temporarily ruled Fokker tri-motors off the airways for inspection. Last week General Motors decided it was fed-up, took active charge of General Aviation Corp. engineering away from Fokker.

Out went a dozen of "Tony's" best foreign-born engineers (including Chief Engineer Albert Gassner).* In, with his own staff, was brought Herbert von Thaden, head of Pittsburgh Metal Airplane Co. (like Fokker Aircraft, a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Aviation Corp.). To Washington went Ace Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, director of sales, to promise Army and Coast Guard officials full speed on their contracts! Commercial activities were practically suspended. Sitting on the lid of the stewing cauldron is G. M.'s James M. Schoonmaker Jr., president of General Aviation Corp.

The shakeup was by no means complete last week. This week's meeting of the board, observers guessed, would witness the firing or resignation of "Tony" Fokker.

"Haphazard Luck"

Within one week after they flew the Atlantic to Germany and Denmark in the Bellanca Liberty, the names of Pilot Holger Hoiriis and Passenger Otto Hillig could scarcely be found in U. S. newspapers. Their momentary flame of fame had been blown out by the propeller blast of the glorious Winnie Mae (see col. i). Here & there little two-paragraph despatches told of their jaunt from Copenhagen back into Germany, where Mr. Hillig became king for a day to the 300 inhabitants of his native Steinbrucken, whence he emigrated to the U. S. 40 years ago. There he shook hands with those oldsters who thought they remembered him as a boy of 15, dined at the table of his farmer brother.

Next day Hoiriis & Hillig flew back to Denmark for a reception at the pilot's birthplace, Braband. But the important city of Aarhus only three miles away, capital of the county, disdained to take official notice of their visit. The flight, said Burgomaster Jacob Jensen, was "haphazard luck." Had the flyers not named Copenhagen as their destination? And had they not floundered about over Spain and France before getting their bearings? So what if they had flown across the Atlantic Ocean safely? Many another has done the same. That is nothing nowadays.

Names in the Air

As new names and new planes flashed across oceans and front pages last fortnight, famed old names cropped up in curious profusion, mostly for unspectacular reasons.

P: While Amelia Earhart (Mrs. George Palmer Putnam) was being officially reprimanded by the Department of Commerce for "poor judgment" in her autogiro crackup (TIME, June 22), her husband's publishing company (Brewer, Warren & Putnam) brought out the first book written by Capt. Frank Monroe Hawks. Last week Capt. Hawks returned from Europe, unloaded his plane from the steamer at Quebec, flew it off the pier.

P: In East St. Louis, Ill. Major James H. ("Jimmy") Doolittle flew the wings off a new plane of his own design in which he hoped to break the world speed record of 278 m. p. h. for land planes. Few days later he announced that "Mrs. Doolittle has made up our mind" that he will quit racing because of "my advanced years." (He is 34.)

P: In New York Capt. Lewis A. ("Lon") Yancey, New York-Rome navigator of 1929, qualified for the first pilot's license he ever possessed. And Bert Acosta, who may not fly licensed planes because his pilot's license was suspended more than two years ago, cracked up a rickety 1919 Fokker at Roosevelt Field.

P: From St. John, N. B. to Armonk, N.Y. flew Clarence Duncan Chamberlin. Strapped to a stretcher in the cabin was his friend and pupil Ruth Nichols whose back was injured in the crash that ended her attempt of a transatlantic flight (TIME, June 29). Prior to fetching Miss Nichols, Flyer Chamberlin had taken his Crescent monoplane to Floyd Bennett Airport, New York City, hung out a sign coaxing joy-hoppers to "fly with a pilot who flew the Atlantic," promising an autograph on every ticket. Immediately Roosevelt Flying Corp. hired Roger Q. Williams, just released from "alimony" jail, made him pilot of one of their Fairchilds at the same field, hawked his trans-atlantic fame in competition to Chamberlin's.

P: In New York Col. & Mrs. Charles Augustus Lindbergh received permission to fly over Soviet territory on their proposed flight to the Orient, arranged for fuel caches, tested their plane remodeled for the trip.

P: In Paris Joseph Lebrix (former flying partner of Dieudonne Coste) and Marcel Doret, famed stunt flyer, tuned up their Dewoitine monoplane The Hyphen for an eastward flight around the world in four hops.

P: The Graf Zeppelin flew from Friedrichshafen to Iceland and back as practice for its Arctic cruise late this month.

*Distance covered: 15,474 mi.; flying time, 4 days, 10 hr. Previous round-the-world record was the Graf Zeppelin's 21 days 7 hr. 34 min. Her distance was 19,500 mi.

*G. M. officials have long felt that the profusion of foreigners in Fokker personnel was a handicap in seeking U. S. Government contracts. Last fortnight Fokker renewed his own application for citizenship papers.

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