Transport: On Top

Swain to Pezzi to Adam is not a baseball double play, but the briefest way of describing a contest which has lately raged in the substratosphere between England and Italy. Last autumn England's Squadron Leader F. D. R. Swain set a new world airplane altitude record of 49,944 ft. in a Bristol monoplane (TIME, Oct. 12). Two months ago Italy's Colonel Mario Pezzi boosted the record to 51,361 ft. in a Caproni biplane (TIME, May 17). Last week England's Lieutenant M. J. Adam flew Pilot Swain's Bristol to 53,937 ft. This rivalry would have no more importance than an urchin's game of "whole-hand-or-none" on a baseball bat to see who shall be first up, were it not for the fact that always so far in aviation's brief history today's altitude record has become tomorrow's airway. Fifteen years ago world's altitude record was under 37,000 ft. In the last three years several groups of commercial airmen have spent many an hour at this height preparing the way for passenger transports. Last week when the first such transport underwent successful high-flight tests, it became apparent that commercial flying in the substratosphere is soon to be a commonplace. Until about 1930 transports flew by "contact"—i. e., maintaining visual contact with the ground. With development of beams and other radio navigational aids, airliners ventured to fly blind for long stretches at 10,000 ft. (world record in 1911) in the manner which is now standard the world over. Bold spirits thereupon visualized flying twice or thrice as high to escape bad weather, take advantage of reduced air resistance, trade winds. First man to attempt what many called a ridiculous stunt was the late great Wiley Post. Wearing a cumbersome rubber oxygen suit, Post made three flights in the substratosphere in his famed globe-girdling Winnie Mae, the longest from Los Angeles to Cleveland in March 1935. Each time he risked his life, and mechanical difficulties prevented complete success, but he did lift his plane's speed from 150 to 340 m.p.h. and he found no weather hazards at 35,000 ft. These results convinced Transcontinental & Western Air, which had cooperated in the tests, that further research was worthwhile.