Comments on: How Many Will Die Flying the Atlantic this Season? (Aug, 1931)

By: Toronto

Toronto — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:54:33 +0000

They used plans for the B-36? I thought it was made from a handy length of culvert and as many engines it took to push it through the air. The cockpit looked like a welding accident.

Then again, I like Lancasters, so to each his own.

(And of course, the Dak/DC3/C47 was and is beautiful, and it *is* hard to imagine it was flown only a few years after this article was written. It surely was a heady period.)

By: Torgo

Torgo — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:37:22 +0000

It’s amazing how fast aircraft technology was advancing at this time. Only 10 years later and they were drawing up plans for the B-36.

By: Tracy B.

Tracy B. — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:40:38 +0000

Aircraft in the early thirties were rather unreliable– the DC-3 was not available until 1935.

By: Eliyahu

Eliyahu — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:25:08 +0000

The author certainly let his biases against women show through. Anything a woman might do is obviously just because of technological improvements, but the future achievements of men are to be lauded…
I would note that the cover illustration makes it obvious as to why people of that era thought of airplanes as flying death traps.

By: Jack Roberts

Jack Roberts — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:02:26 +0000

I have always believed that Pangborn had a Sperry artificial horizon in the plane. This is the first time I have seen it in print.

Pang was my Grandmother’s cousin.

A replica of Pang’s Plane “Miss Veedol” has been built with the hopes of replicating his Non Stop Trans Pacific Flight. http://www.spiritofwenatchee.org

By: Charlene

Charlene — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:27:41 +0000

Pessimistic but not totally unrealistic even in the medium-term. If you go back and look at aviation accident reports from the 50s and 60s it’s amazing how many accidents there were every year, and how many of the accidents killed 70, 80, or 100 passengers.

By: Gregly

Gregly — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:47:31 +0000

Oops, totally missed the “unless” clause there. But even then they go on to say that it will mean “certain death” for some of their number. Talk about pessimism.

By: Gregly

Gregly — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:46:28 +0000

Wow. They get it wrong in the very first paragraph, assuming that the odds of surviving a trans-Atlantic trip will never change (ignoring little things like improved technology, and future flights learning from past flights' mistakes), so naturally if 40% of past flights failed, 40% of future flights will surely fail as well!