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[[image - The Pegasus logo]]

The PEGASUS:

Ralph G. Platt - Editor
William G. Key - Associate Editor
James J. Fisher - Art Director
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Published monthly by FAIRCHILD ENGINE AND AIRPLANE CORPORATION
VOL. 25 November 1956 No. 11
Hagerstown, Md.

James A. Allis - Chairman of the Board
Richard S. Boutelle - President
Arthur F. Flood - Executive Vice President and Comptroller
Paul J. Frizzell - Vice President
Floyd S. Bennett, Jr. - Treasurer
Paul S. Cleaveland - Secretary
George F. Chapline - Vice President and General Manager, Fairchild Engine Division - Deer Park, N. Y.
Willard L. Landers - Vice President and General Manager, Fairchild Aircraft Division, Hagerstown, Md.
F. E. Newbold, Jr. - Vice President and General Manager, Stratos Division, Bay Shore, N. Y.
Edwin A. Speakman - Vice President and General Manager, Guided Missiles Division. Wyandanch, N. Y.
Howard E. Roberts - General Manager, Fairchild Electrotechnics Division, Costa Mesa, Calif.
William L. Smith - General Manager, Speed Control Division, St. Augustine, Fla.
Alfred Gassner - General Manager, Fairchild Kinetics Division, New York City, N. Y.

THE FRONT COVER

Insignes of the thirteen local service airlines, and the new Fairchild F-27 propjet ordered by several of the carriers, are deftly blended by Artist Fisher

[[image - front cover of the November 1956 issue of The Pegasus]]

Not all Beer and Skittles

Across our desk in recent days have come a number of statements, tracts, and press release pointing up the tremendous growth and future potential of aviation.  They leave no doubt that air power, military and civil, exerts one of the most compelling forces affecting our lives today.

Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks, whose assignment it is to keep tabs on the nation's business, reports that the investment in aviation in America now has passed the $100 billion mark, and adds a "conservative" prediction that it will exceed $150 billion by 1960.  Acting Civil Aeronautics Administrator James T. Pyle contributes the news that airline, business and private aircraft traffic in the past year set new records and is still climbing.  Meantime, the Aircraft Industries Association reports that orders are on the books for approximately 600 jet and turboprop airliners valued at more than $2 billion.

These figures are impressive, and every American can take pride in the bigness, the importance and the progressiveness of this still-young industry.  But, to philosophize a bit, pride should be tempered by humility.  So, let's interrupt our chest-thumping occasionally to remember that progress in aviation has been no different than in any other field of endeavor.

It has not been all beer and skittles.  For every success there have been a thousand failures.  The path to our present air power greatness has been strewn with disappointment, heartache, adversity, and even tragedy.  One need only to read Walter T. Bonney's "Heritage of Kitty Hawk," chapter IX of which appears in this issue, to appreciate the time, toil and tenacity of men to overcome the obstacles in the path of every technological and economic advance thus far achieved.

Only recently there was released another piece of writing that brings to light the struggles of a group of typical aviation pioneers.  It is "Vision, a Saga of the Sky," written by Harold Mansfield and published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce.  The author took a year's leave of absence from his post as advertising and public relations director of the Boeing Airplane Company to complete the work.

Essentially, Mansfield's book relates the Boeing story, but except for names and places, it could also be the story of any one of a dozen other similar organizations and the men who made them great.  What makes it a good book, rather than just a literary monument to Boeing, is that Mansfield has caught and bared the human qualities of the characters involved.

We recommend it, not only for the enjoyable reading it affords, but because it should disabuse a lot of minds of the idea that aviation has been all beer and skittles. - RGP.

[[image - small decorative Pegasus logo]]

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PEGASUS PICTURES

Credits: Inside front cover, Piedmont Airlines. Page 2, upper right, Fairchild Aircraft Division; left center and lower right, Civil Aeronautics Administration. Page 4, Civil Aeronautics Board. Page 6 and 7, CAA. Pages 8 and 9, US Air Forces. Page 10, upper left and center, A History of Aeronautics, by E. C. Vivian and W. Lockwood Marsh; bottom right, Smithsonian Institution. Page 12, left, Aero Manual; right, The Art of Aviation, by R. W. A. Brewer. Page 13, Aviation Engines, by Victor W. Page. Page 14, top, Aviation, by A. E. Berriman; center and bottom, Smithsonian. Back cover, Fairchild Aircraft Division.

ADDRESS CHANGES

The readership of THE PEGASUS is highly mobile. Every effort is made to keep up with changes of address, but inevitably some are missed. You can help us, and assure prompt delivery each month, if you will just drop us a note telling us of any transfers-or if the present address is not correct. Just address it to: Editor, THE PEGASUS, Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp., Hagerstown, Maryland.
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PRINTED IN U. S. A.
JUDD & DETWEILER, INC.
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Transcription Notes:
Double - Reviewed