AERONAUTICS: Move Towards Mass

Sundry measures of price reduction have been tried, without signal success, with the purpose of lifting aviation out of its economic morass. Last week heroic methods were proposed by Erie P. Halliburton, president of Southwest Air

Fast Express (“SAFE” lines) operating passenger routes in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas.

Mr. Halliburton offered to buy 1,000 trimotored Ford monoplanes “or their equivalent in performance,” to establish a nation-wide network of passenger air lines —to make people fly. The first 100 planes, he said, were to be delivered at the rate of two per week, at $20,000 per plane less than the current price.*

Said he: “. . . the proposal is my idea of trying to help the industry find itself. It has got to get down to business—and ground this suicide squad that is trying to fly the Atlantic.”

Mr. Halliburton, a resident of Duncan, Okla., with business headquarters at Tulsa, made considerable wealth in the oil business, sunk a great part of it in “SAFEWAY” lines.† Member of no large group in the industry, he has always been one of the most vocal of the air tycoons.

*Current prices: Ford, Wasp-powered $50,000; Wright, J-6 powered $40,000; Fokker, Wasp-powered $54,500; Wright, J-6 powered $49,000.

†First cousins of Mr. Halliburton are J. C. Halliburton, president of Safeway Airways, and Richard Halliburton, traipsing author.