Aeronautics: Death of Wedell

Last year the two best builders of U. S. racing planes were Zantford D. ("Granny") Granville and James Robert ("Jimmy") Wedell. Between their fat little Gee-Bee's and Wedell-Williams Specials it was a toss-up in any race. Last February "Granny" Granville was killed in one of his own planes at Spartanburg, S. C. (TIME, Feb. 26). Last week Jimmy Wedell was killed in a Gypsy Moth near Patterson, La. A student taking his first flight was believed to have "frozen" to the stick, stalled the plane.

Son of a waterfront barkeep in Texas City, Tex., Jimmy Wedell got no further in school than the ninth grade. A boyhood motorcycle accident blinded his right eye. Mechanically inclined, he ran a small garage, saved enough money to buy a second-hand plane which he learned to fly in one hour. Barnstorming around the Southwest took him to Patterson where he met Harry Palmerston Williams, Louisiana lumber tycoon, husband of one-time Cinemactress Marguerite Clark.

Backed by Williams' millions. Wedell began building high-speed planes in 1930. Unable to read a blueprint, he built "by ear," learned by experience. Last year in one of his own ships he set the world's land-plane speed record (304.98 m.p.h.). His wife set the woman's land-plane record in the same ship. Col. Roscoe Turner's West-East transcontinental record 10 hr. 4 min. 55 sec.) and East-West record (12 hr. 33 min.) were both made in a Wedell ship.

Last December Jimmy Wedell made national news by flying a sick infant 1,400 mi. through fog and storm from Houston to Baltimore for an operation which saved her life (TIME, Jan. 8). Fortnight ago a windstorm wrecked his hangar, failed to damage the uncompleted plane with which he hoped to fly 450 m.p.h.