AVIATION: 6,000-Mile Hop

At Idlewild Airport's opening last week (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the biggest crowds gathered around the Air Force's huge (six engines, 230-foot wingspread) 6-36 bomber. But what made U.S. airlines take notice were the details which Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. released on a recent trip of its "flying cigar." The monster had taken off with the heaviest load ever lifted by an airplane (a gross weight of 300,000 Ibs.) and flown nonstop for 6,000 miles at more than 300 m.p.h. From San Diego, the ship went north to Seattle, back to San Diego, then to Fort Worth, north to Dayton and back to Fort Worth before it finally landed, more than 19 hours after its takeoff. It looked as if the transport version of the B-36, the XC-99, would have no trouble fulfilling Convair's promise to carry 400 passengers for 8,100 miles nonstop.