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Transport: Vertaplane

In Philadelphia one day last week a pilot named George Townson took off from an airport in a plane that resembled an ordinary biplane. He circled the field, landed normally, few minutes later took off again. While he was in midair, watchers on the ground saw the upper wing begin to revolve like the vanes of a gyro. This time George Townson landed in the steep, space-saving drop characteristic of a gyro, came to earth gently.

Christened the "Vertaplane" by its inventor, Gerard Post Herrick (distant kin of onetime Ambassador to France Myron T....

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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