Evening star. [volume], June 30, 1946, Page A-15, Image 15

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Stunt Flight Makes
Newsman Think He's
In Washing Machine
By A. A. Hoehling
Yesterday I learned what clothes
must feel like inside a washing
machine.
I was not in a washer, understand,
but in a stunt plane piloted by a
daredevil veteran of the old barn
storming days when atomic war
fare was only a twinkle in the
scientists’ eyes.
It all happened at the first annual
Maryland Civil Air Patrol show at
the Beltsville Airport, which the
Army Air Forces sponsored to help
along the membership and equip
ment of its warborn auxiliary.
It was a big show, with several
thousand persons watching. Army
planes including the P-80 Shooting
Star buzzed the field, and exhibits
on the ground, but first . . .
Shamed into Flight.
Really I was shamed into the
whole thing by the zealousness of
officers of the Maryland wing of the
patrol who announced over the
loudspeaker that a reporter, nam
ing me, was going aloft in the stunt
plane.
There was a delay of nearly an
hour while this reporter, whose fly
ing ability begins and ends with
Piper Cubs, alternately shook, wished
for a thunderstorm or a call back
Navy Officers Testify
Data Sold to Red Aide
Could Injure U. S.
ly th« AuociaUd Pr«»t
SEATTLE, June 29.—Two naval
authorities testified in Federal Dis
trict Court late today that the in
formation the Government alleges
Russian Navy Lt. Nicolai G. Redin
obtained regarding the new United
States naval destroyer tender Yel
lowstone was of a nature which
"could be used to injure the United
States and to the advantage of a
foreign nation.”
Lt. Redin went to trial Tuesday on
two Federal indictments charging
espionage and conspiracy, in con
nection with confidential data re
garding the tender.
Capt. Homer N. Wallin, 13th Naval
District shipbuilding supervisor,
told defense counsel Irvin Goodman
that he did not know what equip
ment was aboard Icebreakers turned
over to Russia in Seattle or Bremer
ton, Wash., during the war.
Equipment Kept Secret.
"But,” he added, “I am morally
certain there was equipment on the
Yellowstone not turned over to any
foreign nation.”
Both he and Comdr. John H. Mc
Quilkin, supervisor of hull design
for the Bureau of Ships, Washing
ton, testified that the items intro
duced by the Government as having
been requested by Lt. Redin and
supplied him by the prosecution’s
^ star witness, 69-year-old Herbert
Kennedy, shipyard trial engineer,
v were confidential.
In a quietly dramatic courtroom
scene in Lt. Redin’s espionage-con
spiracy trial, Capt. Wallin took up
Mr. Kennedy’s longhand copy of
"confidential information” he said
Lt. Redin bought for $250 and
scanned it sentence by sentence.
It covered "restricted” informa
tion on the Yellowstone’s general
specifications, its auxiliary machin
ery and the dock trials of its pro
pulsion machinery.
“Significantly Injurious.”
Capt. Wallin, who supervised the
Yellowstone’s construction at the
yard where Kennedy was test engi
neer, said he considered “most sig
nificantly injurious” to the United
States’ national defense "the refer
ences to steam temperatures and
steam pressures, the amount of
vacuum and the general capacities
of various of the Yellowstone’s
auxiliaries.”
Capt. Wallin testified, over de
fense attorneys’ strenuous objec
tions, that all items in the memo
randum were “unquestionably con
fidential.”
No Let Up Is Foreseen
In Heavy Food Demand
iy th» Associated Press
With Industrial production and
employment expected to cltmb to a
new peacetime peak in the near
future, the Agriculture Department
said yesterday it could forsee no let
up in the heavy demand for foods
that developed during the war.
Despite strikes that caused de
lays in reconversion and considera
ble unemployment, income payments
to individuals during the first five
months of this year were said to
have been only 4 per cent below the
record for the comparable period
last year and 133 per cent above the
1935-39 annual average.
The heavy demand for food and
other commodities has resulted, the
department said, in broad advances
in prices since the beginning of the
year. It added that pressures on
the price structure have in no way
been weakened.
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REPORTER TAKES A RIDE—A. A. Hoehling, Evening Star reporter, has his fingers crossed as he
shakes hands with Capt. Victor Sponsler, Army Air Forces, before going up for some stunt flying
at the first annual Maryland Civil Air Patrol show yesterday at the Beltsville Airport.
____ —Star Staff Photo
to the office or that he had been
sent out that morning to cover a
baby show or even a garden club
meeting.
But nothing providential hap
pened and there I was being hoisted
into my parachute and next the
cockpit of the two-seater biplane.
Pilot Shakes Hands.
My pilot, Capt. Victor Sponsler,
who flew the famous China-Burma
"hump” during the war, shook hands
with me in an ominous sort of way
and wanted to know if I wanted
"the works," and then started up
the engine before I could say "No.”
So off we went by the grand
stands while they played "Shoo Fly
Pie” on the loudspeaker, which did
seem somewhat inappropriate. The
people, too, had metamorphosed
from nice ordinary people to the
blood-thirsty lot you’d see at a bull
fight—or so I thought.
We made a conservative enough
take-off. Getting my courage up, I
tapped Capt. Sponsler on the shoul
der and indicated I was taking over
the controls.
That way, we flew very nicely for
a few minutes, neither losing nor
gaining altitude. But it was obvi
ously kindergarten stuff for the old
barnstormer. He took them back
again.
Things Happen Fast.
Things happened fast, as if in a
nightmare—perhaps it was. First
we were at 3,000 feet, then 1,000,
then up to maybe 2,000, and down
to 800, and alj in the space of brief
minutes.
We rolled over, dived, nosed up
and generally acted in a way to
strike terror into the heart of the
operators of any commercial air
line. I hung on to—well, I don’t
know what—but I hung on as the
pressure of the dives compressed
my insides like in a vise and as my
body pulled against the safety belt
as though I were going to shoot put
of the plane the next minute.
One moment there were clouds
; before my vision, the next the
! whirling panorama of ever-nearing
•ground, houses and trees, the next
blue sky. Half the time, Sunday
flyer that I am, I did not even know
what maneuver we were doing ex
cept that it was indeed a maneuver
and a poor way to spend one’s time.
•
Performed Half-Rolls.
Afterwards, when we were on the
ground and I could stand up again
without two people on either side,
he explained that he had done a
couple of half-rolls, a split S “out
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hearing aids look old-fashioned, sound
old-fashioned. See it, try it today. •
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of the bottom,” and a nose over
resulting in a 12-turn dive. Or do
you follow?
Capt. Sponsler went up again to
do even more daring stunts by him
self. And I felt a little old fashioned
to think that this old fashioned
business had even been a thrill as
I watched the really "hot” ships of
the Army come over the field.
The jet-propelled P-80 Shooting
Star buzzed the field several times
at 560-plus miles an hour and
staged dogfights with three seem
ingly antiquated P-61s, which were
among our best planes of the war;
B-25 Mitchell medium bombers and
A-26 Invaders, also more or less
obsolete, also maneuvered over the
field; and Aubrey Patterson, a pro
fessional parachute Jumper from
Baltimore, made two successful
Jumps.
Lt. Robert A. Hoover of Wright
Field, who piloted the Shooting Star,
nearly failed to make the show.
His plane caught fire midway be
tween Pittsburgh and Baltimore
yesterday morning, and Lt. Hoover
was Just about to Jump when the
fire went out and he continued on
his way. The plane suffered little
damage.
There will be two shows again
today, at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and
Oov. O'Connor, who designated last
week as "Maryland Air Show Week”
may attend. The AAF plans to
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have shows like this in every State
In order to build up enthusiasm in
the CAP which it wants as a res
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The National Capital group of
the Maryland CAP wing numbers
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