Transport: Icarus to Bossi

Three years ago, like many another newspaper, the New York Times carried an astonishing picture of a man on skis propelling himself off the ground by puffing into a pair of rotors. It turned out to be an April Fooler concocted by the editors of Germany's Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. Year later, another story blossomed in Germany-that a pilot named Dünnbeil had shot his glider into the air with a rubber cable, flown 700 yd. by pumping furiously on a treadle. This flight, authenticated by the German Air Sport League, was still a compromise of human and mechanical power. Last week, however, the feat which Icarus and Leonardo da Vinci made famous by failure was finally achieved. In Milan, where Leonardo experimented with flapping wings 400 years ago, Pilot Vittorio Bonomi took off, flew five-eighths of a mile in a bicycle plane worked only by his own strength.

Only story of the event was a tiny Associated Press despatch which was followed by silence so complete that wary U. S. editors suspected another hoax. Then it developed that the bike plane's inventor was a well-known oldtime flyer named Enea Bossi, now in charge of stainless steel research at E. G. Budd Manufacturing Co. in Philadelphia. Steelman Bossi, unaware until newshawks descended on him that news of his "aerocycle" had broken in Milan, disproved any hoax by showing motion pictures of himself making the first human-power flight in history in Milan last Sept. 13. The story was kept secret because the aerocycle is shortly to compete for an Italian prize of $5,000 for human-power flight.

The successful bike plane is a light glider with a pair of pedals geared to two propellers. It takes a very powerful man to get it off the ground. Six-ft. 185-lb. Icarus Bossi could keep it up only 13 seconds on his first flight, has managed in later attempts to reach a height of 28 ft., speed of 20 m.p.h. from a standing, level start. So slight is the superiority of the human power-plant over friction and gravity that the plane will not take off from any but smooth concrete surfaces.

A naturalized U. S. citizen of 49, dark-eyed Enea Bossi was a pioneer pilot in Italy, taught famed Giuseppe Bellanca how to fly. Later he designed many successful ships, fought in the War, where he knew Corporal Benito Mussolini fairly well. Said Enea Bossi last week: "He's a big fella now. I've only seen him twice since he got to be a big fella."