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F-6 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 15, 1936--PART FOUR.
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ARMY AVIATION BORN JUST 25 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH
College Park Was Scene Of First Training Flight
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Service Has Grown Mightily Since Its Weak Wings Were Spread Near Capital; First Airmen Still Are Active.
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By Joseph S. Edgerton.
TWENTY-FIVE years ago this month, in November, 1911, 7 miles from the United States Capitol, at College Park, Md., United States Army aviation completed its fledgling stage and left the eyrie. Its first Sumer of training behind it, the young air service a quarter century ago made its first appearance before the public as a part of the Nation's defensivs system.

During the subsequent 25 years Army aviation has made itself known to virtually every citizen of the Republic. Ever State, almost every county, has heard the deep-throated roar of the fighting squadrons as they sweep the skies in combat training.

Twenty-five years ago, during the closing days of November, when the "United States Army aviation squad" broke up its first aviation camp for the Winter and prepared to move South, days and weeks of anxious preparation preceded the transfer of the four airplanes and personnel and equipment--by train--to Augusta, Ga. Today an hour's notice is sufficient to send a full squadron or group of giant, powerful Army fighting planes hundreds, or even thousands, of miles from home, equipped and manned for action. In this silver anniversary year of Army flying, several such "surprise" missions have been ordered to test the fitness of the fighting squadrons of the General Headquarters Air Force and have proved them ready and able.

Of the five officers who composed that first aviation camp at College Park, two are in the Air Corps, in positions of high command, after 25 years of continuous flying service. Another, retired, lives in Washington.

College Park Airport, world's first military airdrome, still is an active, bustling flying field. It has lost all of its military atmosphere, however, and the accent is on the private and sports phases of flying, scarcely hinted 25 years ago, when it was the home of the entire Army air service.

ALTHOUGH the first military airplane was delivered to the Army in 1909, it was not until 1911 that the training of Army pilots really began, following the establishment of the College Park base. The National Capital, from the beginning, was the center of most of the early Army aviation activity.

In September, 1908, Orville Wright arrived at Fort Myer, Va., and began demonstrating the Wright airplane to Army officials. On September 9 he circled the parade ground 57 times in less than an hour, and later that same day accomplished the first flight exceeding an hour's duration.  The
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"headless" Wright ship, the front elevators having been moved to the rear with the rudder. The first Army Wright airplane, the famous ship of the 1909 flights at Fort Myer, at this time was turned over to the Smithsonian Institution as a relic.

By the end of June, 1911, the four Army hangars had been completed. They were at the north end of College Park Airport, along the railroad embankment. Next to them, at the south, was the large double hangar shared by Baldwin and Christmas. Next door was a tent housing the old Rex Smith machine and then came the largest building on the field, the new Smith factory. At the south end of the line was another tent housing a Curtiss airplane which was being assembled by C. A. Dorian.

By this time Capt. Chandler had arrived and taken over command of the Army detachment. Kirtland began his aviation training on June 26, with Lieut. Arnold as his instructor. They made several circuits of the field and on the last two laps Kirtland was at the controls. Chandler also began training about this time. The Army officers at this time wore leather foot ball helmets while flying.

On July 6 Lieut. Milling, trying for a pilot's license, landed five feet from a designated mark. The next day Lieut. Arnold climbed to an altitude of 3260 feet and on the same day, with Kirtland as a passenger, Milling made a notable flight from College Park to Washington  Barracks, landing on the parade ground. Arnold's altitude flight was the highest made up to that time at College Park and also resulted in a new field duration record of 32 minutes.

Because of his aptitude it was decided that Kirtland was to have charge of a new Wright-Burgess airplane which had been delivered. Harry N. Atwood, famous civilian pilot, was called to "check out" the young officer on the new ship.

Three days later, Arnold, with Kirtland as passenger, flew to Washington and returned without an intermediate landing being in the air 40 minutes. On July 18, Lieut. Arnold established a new altitude record of 4167 feet. No less than 127 flgiths were made by the Army pilots up to July 20 and 56 passengers were carried.

Such a recital of flying accomplishments is prosaic enough in these days when duration flights are measured in weeks, distance in thousands of miles and speed in hundreds of miles, but in those days, just a quarter century ago, they were thrilling events and thousands of Washingtonians visited College Park during the Summer to witness the birth and early develop

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from College Park before dawn on the longest cross-country flight of the year and one of the earliest real military missions for the infant flying service. They flew 41 miles across the rolling Maryland countryside to Camp Ordway, at the foot of the mountains near Frederick, where National Guard maneuvers were in progress and they brought to the startled citizen soldiers a realization that perhaps a new element was being injected into warfare. The return flight was made late in the afternoon. 

The squad was equipped with both Wright and Curtiss airplanes and there was a good deal of rivalry between the crews of the rival ships.

The first motion pictures taken from an airplane in flight were made by one of the Army pilots on September 15 during a flight from College Park to the Benning Race Track. It was [[?]]
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days of September found Beck, Arnold, Milling and Kirtland at the Aero Club of New York meet at Nassau, N.Y., where Milling established a duration record of nearly two hours with two passengers and where Beck took Postmaster General Hitchcock for a flight during which the postal chief carried one of the first airmail letters. Milling's duration record won him a $1,000 prize.

College Park was the scene not only of the first military training and aerial photography but also of the first military bombing, aerial machine gunnery, aerial signaling and airplane radio.

The first bomb-dropping experiment took place there on October 9, 1911 with Milling as pilot and an ordinance officer as bomber. They used an empty artillery shell with fins [?] it and an improvised tele-
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a private airplane and C. H. Fisher was test-flying the Christmas ship. Rex Smith was busy, and others also were flying there from time to time. At this time the Army had six governmental hangars completed, and they all have new coats of dark olive paint. there was also a new hangar tent devised by Lieut. Kirtland for field service.

Washington saw all three Army airplanes in flight on November 10, when the squad flew to Fort Myer for ceremonies in their honor. Lieut. Arnold flew the Wright, with Lieut. Kennedy as passenger. The Burgess-Wright was flown by Lieut. Milling, with Capt. Kirtland as his passenger. The Curtiss had been undergoing some modifications to increase its speed, at a sacrifice of load capacity, and so it had to be flown without a passenger by Capt. Beck.

The Army squad was nearing the close of it's first Summer of training, but there remained one most important event before the camp was broken up for the Winter. ON November 17 the first flying was undertaken. [?] serachlights of a type then in general use on auto-
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J. P. Kelley, Medical Corps, made the trip by rail. 

The aviation detachment arrived at Augusta, Ga., at midnight on the 29th. The new site for the Aviation School had been selected on a farm just east of Augusta, where several hundred of level land, which had been used for raising hay, were available. The detachment Wintered at Augusta, where Lieut. Kelly qualified as a pilot and a number of notable flights were made. On January 25 Lieut. Arnold attained an altitude of 4,764 feet. The Army pilots, however, had agreed not to try altitudes above a mile, "as that is sufficiently high for practical purposes." Today pursuit is operating up to 6 miles and striving for more altitude.

The entire Army organization was returned to College Park on April 1, 1912, for its second Summer.

The 1911 season, however, was the only one in which the whole Air Service was concentrated for so long a period at one place, and it is regarded as one of the most successful of the early periods of military flying, in view of the strictly pioneering character of the work. Four airplanes were used
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Government Shopping 
Is Aid to All Buyers

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national products, gets what he pays for. 

Savings of millions of dollars have accrued to the consumers of the United States because of the continuous research and testing of this

vital agency. Hand in hand with industry, the Bureau has likewise labored to set up standards for judging the values of articles of trade or commerce. By means of simplified practice, Federal specifications, commercial standards, the small consumer has been guided to purchase wisely and well. 

Officials of the bureau emphasize the fact that they occupy no arbitrary position with respect to our national industries. They are the first to recognize the dangers that lie in the type of "standardization" that symbolizes a loss of individuality, a narrowing of the scope of preference, or detraction from those qualities of distinctiveness which hold such characteristic appeal. Standardization, they admit, may conceivably be carried to such extremes as to destroy the ojbectives and lose the proper purposes for which it was intended. Therefore they dedicate their efforts to constructive standardization, considering its value and potentialities as an aid to better living.

Standards for efficiency have always been the aim, the bureau points out, of leaders and social life, and transportation is advanced as an example. Until about 60 years ago a traveler had to change cars several times between New York City and New Orleans because there was no uniformity in the width of the railroad trackage. These tracks were eventually brought into uniformity of width by the establishment of the standard guage of 56 1/2 inches. Since that time standard railroad equipment has been transferable from any and all railroad trackage in the United States, assuring comfort and expedition in travel that was impossible without standardization.

SIMILARLY, in the manufacturing industry, mass production and the economics and benefits directly resulting were made possible by fixing upon a standard pattern. The entire 

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tons" of the industrial arts labor patiently, unobtrusively and devotedly in these laboratories. Some of the  most extraordinary of the testing devices are the products of their inventive genius. Some of the most superior commercial products are the results of their tireless research. Their methods for conducting experiments are as varied as they are fascinating.

They are, for example, three possible ways of testing, as employed by the bureau. First, in the laboratory, where ingredients are ascertained, weighed or measured. Second, in actual service, and, third, in simulated service. By simulated service is meant a duplication of natural conditions or such conditions as the article to be tested would encounter an actual service. For example, it is required to test the wearing qualities, the endurance and durability of a certain paint, let us say. That paint is applied to some surface, such as a wall or roof. It is then subjected, artificially, to the heat of the sun, to freezing temperatures, to thaws and artificial rains until, in a brief but intensive period, it has lived a lifetime.

Most ingenious of the methods for testing is that known as "automatic testing." By this means a laboratory worker may start his experiment under the proper conditions and go away and forget about it while he works on something else. 
For the product or merchandise will go right on testing itself, registering, in a most accommodating fashion its own progress the while.
An interesting example of how this automatic procedure is conducted is the method of testing duralumin- an alloy containing aluminium and copper, that is used very extensively in the manufacture of enormous dirigibles or aircraft, such as the Los Angeles. Strips of the metal are subjected to the elements-artificially created elements-over a certain period of time and under much greater intensity than they would ordinarily be subjected to in service.
In order to duplicate natural conditions, so far as possible, the strip to be tested is not permitted to rest upon anything, and is kept in the air by means of air jets that play upward upon it with such force as to hold it suspended. The metal, thus suspended, is subjected to much more violent vibration than it would experience as part of some aircraft in actual operation. It receives during the course of the experiment between 200 and 400 million vibrations - or an equivalent to 40 years' actual service! 
Adding machines and elevators are products which are also subjected to automatic tests, registering with minute accuracy the number of times they fail to operate correctly or efficiently.
One of the most curious of the tests made at the bureau is that having to do with the durability of the paper that is to be used for United States currency. While this may not receive long wear in the hands of one--