Red Parachutes
Soaring over the Urals two years ago in a Russian passenger plane with a Russian pilot, Reporter-at-Large Ellery Walter was jerked from contemplating a beautiful sunrise by a sickening sputter in the motor. Realizing the ship was out of gasoline, the pilot tugged frantically at the fuel pump, got a dying burst of power which enabled him to clear some trees by a breath-taking margin, land in a cornfield. When Reporter Walter got his breath back he asked how the fuel could be exhausted just after leaving an airport where barrels of it were available. The pilot, who had not shaved for two weeks, stolidly replied:
"I forgot."
That incident epitomized the impression of observers watching a nation of peasants struggle with an ambitious commercial & military aviation program. The Russians were better than fair flyers, but they were poor mechanics and executives. They were always forgetting something. But no pilot or other participant forgot anything at the U. S. S. R.'s first All-Union Aviation Festival last week. A small crowd of 10,000 spectators trooped out to Moscow's Octobrisky Airport, impassively watched the nation's largest airplane, the giant ANT-14, waddle across the field, lift its saurian tail, lumber aloft. Suddenly in a spatter of color the world's record for mass parachute jumping was broken.* Thirty-six graduates of the Soviet parachute school, some of them women, issued from the side door of the ANT-14 like bees from a hive. Ten others leaped from a bomber. Each 'chute was red. white or blue, and each graduate had remembered to bring along a second colored chute which he released as he floated earthward. Fourteen other jumps during the day brought the total to 60, with no injuries.
A small caterpillar tank was borne aloft and dropped, dangling grotesquely beneath a huge parachute. It reached earth with a thump but held together. A tractor bustled up, towed it toward the stands, triumphant despite the fact that the tank was a motorless dummy. Acrobatics and formation flying polished off the day. Observers saw in these demonstrations a new objective in Russian aviation. When the ANT-14 was built two years ago, the gods of progress in the air were the gods of the Five-Year Plan -- Size and Number, The ANT-14 is 85 ft. long, has a wing spread of 134 ft. Its five British motors deliver a total of 2,400 horsepower. In a pinch it can accommodate 46 persons. It is equipped with sleeping compartments, dressing rooms, lavatories, baggage room, dining salon. Its first flight was accompanied by announcements that it would be put into mass production. But no brothers of the ANT-14 have appeared. The gods Size and Number have by no means fallen into disrepute. There was much bombastic pother in the Soviet Press last year about a project to build a fleet of dirigibles (TIME, Feb. 29, 1932). Mean while, like a spider feverishly spinning its web, the U. S. S. R. passed Germany in total length of airlines, became second only to the U. S. Last year the U. S. S. R. reported 750 military planes to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, was generally credited with at least twice that many; and in Russia the distinction between military and civil aircraft is less sharp than elsewhere, since the State owns them all and the commercial planes are designed for quick conversion in case of war. But money for Size and Number is running short. Last week there was no attempt to stagger the capitalist world with a massive display of force. The new key notes were discipline, precision, attention
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