AERONAUTICS: Manhattan Show

To herald Manhattan’s aviation show last week a squadron of planes was to caracole down the Hudson River from Albany, duplicating Glenn Hammond Curtiss’ pioneer long-distance water hop (May 29, 1910). Inclement winds, snow flurries and fogs prevented such sideshow. Thus the show opened on a minor note. It continued so. Attendance was good, buying niggling. This pleased the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce heads, who had refused to coöperate with Aviator’s Post No. 743 of the American Legion, organizers of the exhibition. The War flyers believed that enough aviation manufacturing and sales groups existed around Manhattan to warrant their enterprise. They were disappointed. They found that many manufacturers begrudged the expense of exhibiting at Manhattan last week and at St. Louis next week, when and where the Chamber-approved International Aircraft Exposition opens.

Nonetheless, the Manhattan show contained many an eye-filling exhibit. Vivid colors, big bulks, graceful stream lines satisfied even the veriest tyro. Towering over other ships on the main floor was the Burnelli Flying Wing. Adjacent was the latest Aeromarine Klemm amphibian, also manufactured by the Uppercu-Burnelli group.

Of the light planes, the Barling NB3, same ship in which the late Urban Dite-man, Montana rancher, insisted on undertaking another unsuccessful trans-Atlantic passage, was most efficient, highly airworthy. The GeeBee, a newcomer from Springfield, Mass., has full releasable controls so that the pilot need not beat his student unconscious if he “freezes” to them.

Flimsy, frail contraptions that will soar in little wind, will take a man size load off the ground with no power: those were the gliders. Outstanding were the German craft introduced by the American Motorless Aviation Corp.