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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1374.PDF
The Sunday crowd rolls up, with the fine new airport building distant. On the right Stouffer's orchestra gets in the groove. OFF TO PHILADELPHIA FOR AMERICA'S NATIONAL SHOW BY THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR PART I Photographs by Harold G. Martin An F-101 of Research and Development Command at Mach 9. EXCOMMUNICATION; banishment; deportation. These,I perceived, were my lot as Stratocruiser Cambria nosednorth-west for Keflavik, purring (and sometimes twitching her tail) like a replete cat. The night was long, and fraught withthe awful realization that I had been robbed of my birthright; sold up the River Delaware. I was doomed to miss the First Day of Farnborough.The situation had arisen from my contention that America's National Air Show—this year at Philadelphia, from September3rd-5th—should be recognized as were Le Bourget and Geneva. Why, I had demanded in blind righteousness, should our esteemedand percipient colleagues of Av. Week migrate to probe our aero- planes without some counter-migration on our own part? Pointsof such weight, indeed, that at length I found myself, well behind schedule, in the chilly red dawn of September 1st, at Gander.In my pocket was a fast dog-earing ticket for Philadelphia. In my lap was the job. In more ways than one the Goodyear blimp did a fine job for its Service. The jumbled hours droned by, and by the time a WV-2early-warner had edged into loose formation with us a hundred miles out from New York, I was feeling a shade less desolated.Perhaps I was not exactly a victimized deportee, but just a poor put-upon emigrant, like Paddy Leary (from the spot calledTipperary). Envisaging with satisfaction my associates scrawling through the coming Monday night committing P.Is, Heralds andWidgeons to immortality or perdition, I invoked the philosophy of Mr. Leary himself:— - - ". . . But before the break of morn, ''"•". '."•- Faith 'tis they'll be all forlorn, For I'm off to Philadelphia in the morning." But I was grimly insistent that Philadelphia had better be good. I connected with an Eastern Airlines' Martin 404 Silver Falconwith minutes, instead of the promised hours, to spare. For a solid hour I had endured the purgatory of Idlewild Customs ina stewing heat, and my morale had been further shaken by the examining officer, who counseled me not to go on to Philadelphiaon any account—especially on account of the place just died after eleven.That city I nevertheless entered, on a muggy afternoon. The oppressiveness, allied to my lassitude following some eighteenhours' flying (Monarch comforts notwithstanding), curbed any incipient enthusiasm; but I could hardly do less than seek thewhys and wherefores of the imminent meeting, or as it had been described to me, orgy. Having goaded myself into the beflaggeddowntown headquarters of the organizers, on Chestnut Street, I learned something about the responsible body.In 1945, I was told, a group of mid-west business men met in Cleveland to consider forming a non-profit-making organization"to promote aviation in all its divisions." From this assembly was born Air Foundation, held to be unique in having "no finelypointed and restrictive objectives." Forthwith the Foundation underwrote the indoor show at Cleveland in 1946, netting $75,000for the U.S.A.F. Aid Society. It guaranteed the National Air Races of 1946 and the first National Aircraft Show at Clevelandlater that year . Thereafter for three successive years it sponsored the Cleveland races and was associated with the 1951 event inDetroit. Jointly with the Dayton Chamber of Commerce it organized a National Aircraft Show to celebrate 50 years ofpowered flight and performed a similar office in 1954. Now, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, itwas sponsoring the 1955 event. An advertisement in The Evening Bulletin apprised me thatgate admission was $2 (14s 4d) on the day, or $li in advance. A seat in the reserved section cost another dollar, and boxescould be had at $6.25. At the airfield on Friday I found statically displayed aircraftstretching beyond view. There were scores of them—khaki, green, silver and blue—and in matchless variety. A microcosmof air power. Like great promontories in their midst were the
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