Aeronautics: Faster & Faster

Last year the aviation industry was busy building planes to fly airline passengers faster than they had ever been flown before. Last week the first of the new crop, the Boeing “247,” fastest multi-motored passenger ship in the world, was in regular transcontinental service on United Air Lines. Big, brutish low-wing monoplanes with twin Wasp engines, the new Boeings whipped back & forth between San Francisco and New York in 21½ hr. westbound, 20 hr. eastbound—about 10 hr. faster than former schedules. On the New York-Chicago run the new ships heated the already hot competition between United and Cord’s American Airways. Few weeks ago Errett Lobban Cord put on a fleet of new “silent” Curtiss Condors, slashed the running time down to 6½ hr. westbound, si hr. eastbound. The new Boeings lopped another hour from that time.