Transport: Harmon to Hughes

First man to fly across Long Island Sound was Millionaire Clifford Burke Harmon in a bamboo and piano-wire contraption in 1910. Pioneer Harmon has been the world's most air-minded amateur ever since. In 1925 he founded the Ligue Internationale des Amateurs, which he dreamed would become a sort of international flying police force called Silver Wings of Peace. Instead it has become merely a clearing house for records and a donor of awards. Last week, the Ligue, of which stalwart, 68-year-old Clifford Harmon is still kingpin, announced the latest winner of its most important prize—the Harmon National Trophy for the...