AERONAUTICS: Champion Champion

Muffled from toes to topknot, Lieut. Carlton G. Champion of the U. S. Navy last week climbed above Washington, D. C., as far as his Wright Apache seaplane, with a Pratt & Whitney “Wasp” motor, would take him. When he came down, his instruments were certified as showing 37,995 feet (7 1/5 miles), nearly a mile higher than the previous world’s altitude record for seaplanes, made by Champion Champion in May.†

† The highest altitude ever reached by an airplane was 40,820 feet (almost 7½ miles) by Jean Callizo in a Bleriot-Spad biplane with Lorraine motor, on Aug. 23, 1926.