Aeronautics: Sailing Storm Trooper

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From a hillside near Konigsberg, East Prussia one morning last week a group of university students launched into the air a small sailplane named Loerzer of Grunau. In the cockpit sat a brown-shirted youth named Kurt Schmidt, 27, a philology student at Konigsberg and a Nazi Storm Trooper. It was a good day for a sail—fresh breezes were blowing—and Student Schmidt thought he might stay up until afternoon, so he carried a bottle of drinking water, a few slices of black bread. He sailed south along a ridge 40 mi. or so, swinging back & forth to catch the up-currents that gave altitude, wheeled around and headed home again. Dusk fell, but breezes continued fresh. Student Schmidt thought he might as well keep on sailing. Idly he thought about endurance records. The German record was 16½ hr.; but a U. S. Army officer, Lieut. William A. Cocke Jr., had sailed for 21½ hr. over Honolulu two years ago. . . . Kurt Schmidt swung along the ridge again, soared silently through the darkness. His friends on the ground, catching the idea, flashed weather signals to him with a pocket flashlight. Midnight passed, dawn broke, the sun touched meridian. Kurt Schmidt, tired and hungry, sailed on & on. A second dusk brought threats of a storm. Schmidt and the Loerzer landed with a duration record of 36½ hr.

5,700 Mi.

Paul Codos, a big, swarthy Frenchman who has had a 15-year career of spectacular flying, sniffed the wind at Floyd Bennett Field one dawn last week. He glanced toward the head of the runway where mechanics were fuelling a huge Bleriot monoplane named for the late, famed Joseph LeBrix. He glanced toward the far end where two fire trucks, a crash wagon and an ambulance waited ominously. Grinning, he muttered "Eh, Bien." Then he and another seasoned French pilot named Maurice Rossi kissed their weeping mechanics goodbye, kissed the astonished field manager, climbed into the Joseph LeBrix. No one at Floyd Bennett Field had ever seen such a takeoff. With the unheard-of load of 1,770 gal. of gasoline, the plane weighed nine tons. Cool-headed Pilot Codos held her to nearly the end of the mile-long runway, then eased her into a gentle climb—100 ft. altitude in about three miles. They were off into the east, to what destination even they knew not. Their sole objective: to fly as far as possible, perhaps to India, to break the 5,130 mi. nonstop record held by Great Britain. Through that day and night and the next day the Joseph LeBrix, sturdy but slow, plodded across the Atlantic. Storms battered her. but visibility meant little to her pilots; they were flying by instrument and by radio. On the second evening they swooped low-over Le Bourget (nine minutes behind Lindbergh's time), dropped messages to their wives who. waving and shrieking hysterically, could plainly see their men's faces. Codos & Rossi" flew on through the night and the third day, across Central Europe, Greece and the Aegean Sea. They skirted the coast of Asia Minor. A gasoline leak, wicked winds, intense heat and fatigue combined to make them choose a landing spot. Escorted by French Army Planes the Joseph LeBrix landed at Rayack near the Syrian seaport of Beirut. Unofficial distance from New York: 5,700 mi.

France's Answer