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STAGE IS SET FOR AIR RACES

Program Starts This Afternoon: Many Fliers in Attendance.

   By JAMES V. PIERSOL
(Staff Correspondent of The Detroit News.)

  CLEVELAND, Aug. 29.-Elaborate preparations were being completed here today for the opening late this afternoon of the 1931 National air races.

  While Army and Navy squadrons, and numerous civilian fliers, were rigging their planes for a series of exhibition flights in connection with the opening ceremonies, contest officials were preparing for the first of the closed course races and the finish of the transcontinental derby Sunday.

  Flags of many nations waved among yellow, red and black pennants decorating the green landing area and the newly painted stands. Airplanes dropped in from all sections of the country bringing the 122 men and women pilots who will compete in the 10-day series of events, and many spectators.

GERMAN ACE ARRIVES.

  Among the contestants are the leading pilots of America and five European nations. Maj. Ernst Udet, famous German ace, was the last of the entrants from other lands to arrive. He flew his Flamingo plane here from New York just before dark last night.

  Maj. Udet will fly a daily exhibition with an international stunt team including Lieut.-Col. Mario De Bernardi, of Italy; Capt. Boleslaw Orlinski, of Poland; Maj. Alois Kubita, of Czechoslovakia; and Flight Commander R. L. L. Atcherley, of England.

Commander Atcherley, who 

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Women's Aero Club Entertains Visitors

WOMEN'S AERO CLUB gave a breakfast at Hotel Westlake yesterday for the visiting women flyers, here for the National Air Races.

  Mrs. Blanche Wilcox Noyes of Cleveland, president of the club, presided over a short program of speakers that included Mrs. Ralph K. Rex, honorary president; Amelia Earhart Putnam, Mary Charles, Florence Klingensmith, Loretta Schimmoler, Clema Granger and Debie Stanford.

  The guest of honor was Mrs. Clark Stearns, president of the Women's National Aeronautical association of the United States.

  The other flyers who attended included Mrs. Phoebe Omlie, the winner of the women's derby; Miss Ruth Stewart, Mrs. Mildren Morgan, Louise Vamos, Maude Tait, Abby Dill and Sally Elias. Other guests were Mrs. L. W. Greve, Mrs. E. W. Cleveland, Mrs. H. E. Bert Smith, Mrs. Charles A. Hyde, Mrs. Frederic C. Curtis and Mrs. Ward C. Bell.

  The group spent the afternoon at Akron seeing the new zeppelin, the Akron.

  The meeting of the board of directors of the Women's Aero club will be next Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. at the Chamber of Commerce. The following Wednesday there will be a luncheon at the same place and time for members only.

STAGE IS SET FOR AIR RACES
    (Concluded From Page One.)

thrilled the crowds at the 1930 races in Chicago with his stunt flying, was slightly injured when his plane crashed during his first test flight here late Friday afternoon, but he was expected to be back on the field today or tomorrow. Meanwhile, fellow airmen are endeavoring to get another plane for him. His own machine, a Blackburn Lincock, brought here from England, was too badly damaged for prompt repair. 

2 LANDING FIELDS.

  Ambitious to make Cleveland the center of aircraft racing on a basis similar to the centralization of automobile racing at Indianapolis, the city has divided its big airport into two separate landing areas.

  One landing place, designated the east field, has been set aside for mail and passenger planes which arrive and depart on frequent schedules. The other, designated the west field, is for the race program. The two fields cover about 640 acres and four miles of white canvas, forms a wall 10 feet high around the entire area.

  On the west field, the Cleveland Air Race Corporation, the organization financing and managing the race, has erected a new administration building and stands to accommodate 40,000 spectators. New roads have been graded and street car tracks laid into the port. The National Aeronautic Association, through Senator Hiram Eingham, it's president, has agreed to sanction the Cleveland event exclusively for the next five years.

  Four speed courses have been surveyed and laid out under the rules of the association and miles of wiring have been installed for electric timing devices to make all speed records official.

SLOW PLANE COURSE.

  One course is a quadrangle covering five miles. It will be followed by all the lower powered planes making up to 175 miles an hour. The faster events, including the major speed event that will conclude the program Sept.7, will be run over a 10-mile course of similar shape. Both of these courses will take the planes behind the stands out of sight of the spectators during a large portion of each race. Race officials say both courses had to be arranged in this manner to avoid conflict with regular air line travel to and from the port.

  When they laid them out they had in mind the incident in which Col. Charles A. Lindbergh narrowly missed flying his stunt plane into a transport filled with passengers during the 1929 races here. Lindbergh was making his daily stunt flight when Sam Taylor, former Stout Air Line pilot, came in on the regular Detroit run and crossed Lindbergh's path of flight. The two planes narrowly missed colliding and race officials are taking no more chances of this kind. 

2 SPEED COURSES.

  The speed dashes are entirely new on the annual race program and there are two courses for these events. Both cross the field directly in front of and parallel to the stands. Here, each day, the country's crack pilots, both men and women, will be given an opportunity to break the American and world speed records for land planes.

  One course, a mile straightway, has been laid out to establish a new category of American records.

  The other straightway is three kilometers, one and eight-tenths of a mile, and is laid out to comply with the rules of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the ruling organization on international records. The world land plane record for three kilometers is held by M. Bonnett, a Frenchman, who flew 278 miles an hour in 1924.

  The American record has been held by Alford J. Williams since 1923 at 266 miles an hour.

  Three planes with possibilities of breaking one or both these records were in sight today. They are the Laird biplanes to be flown by Lee Shoenhair and Maj. James Doolittle, and the Gee-Bee speedster to be flown by Lowell Bayles.

  Col. Edward V. Rickenbacker, former automobile racer and America's ranking ace during the World War, will referee the events.

  Other officials are William R. Enyart, secretary of the contest committee of National Aeronautic Association; E. W. (Pop) Cleveland, chairman of the Cleveland contest committee; Ray Collins, chief starter; Carl F. Schory, chief timer; Frank Burnside, chief scorer, and Ray Brown, operations manager. 

  MT. CLEMENS, Mich., Aug. 29.— Led by Maj. George H. Brett, field commandant, 42 Selfridge Field pursuit planes and two transports were to take off early this afternoon for Cleveland, to take part in the National Air Races. From Cleveland the Selfridge group will go to to participate in the Canadian National Exposition. 

 Women, Derby Near End, Re Share In Thrills And Stunts A

Free-For-All Dash And Dead Stick Contests On Program For Them
BY AGNES HOLMQUIST

  Women whose names have woven vivid color [[?]] are expected to swoop out of the sky today [[?]] ready to play their part in the thrills, stunts and [[?]] circus.

  The women arrive after a cross-country grind in the national derby. There has been nothing retiring about them so far—practically every landing list at the end of the day has been headed by the names of women flyers with Mrs. Gladys O'Donnell and Phoebe Omlie sharing the laurels.

  But the mere fact of dropping in from Santa Monica, Cal., doesn't ruffle a lady-birds feathers. The women are expected to take part in two events late today—a free-for-all race at 5:05 p. m. and dead-stick landings at 5.55 p. m.

GIRL FLYER TO STUNT.

  Earlier in the afternoon, at 3 o'clock, Dorothy Hester, 20-year-old stunt flyer from Portland, Ore., is to take to the air in Miss Silvertown, a Great Lakes trainer. She's out to break the outside loop record of 62 for women and 127 for men. Her stunt flying will feature each day's program.

  The roster of women flyers includes most of the women who hold outstanding national records and some few younger ones who expect to steal laurels during the week through hair-raising performances.
 
  The list includes Gladys O'Donell, who won last year's cross-country derby; Louise McPhetridge Thaden, first woman to sell airplanes and holder of an open plane endurance record for women in 1929; Blanche Wilcox Noyes, Cleveland flyer, first woman student to solo at the local airport; once employed as a pilot for a government survey through East Africa, and Louise Vamos, another Cleveland girl.

  And, of course, Amelia Earhart and Ruth Elder Camp, who didn't enter the derby but are planning to take part in some of the week's events.

EVENTS FOR WOMEN.

  These events for women will include dead-stick landings, straightaway speed dashes, aerol trophy race for women and the mixed men's and women's race, which is by invitation. In the last event so far three women have been asked to fly, Miss Maude-Irving Tait of Springfield, Mass., a society girl; Mrs. Joan Faye Shankle of Fort Sill, Okla., and Miss Jean LaRene of Dallas, Tex.

  Mrs. Shankle added an extra thrill in the derby when her plane was forced down between Arizona and Texas. A stabilizaer broke, but instead of sitting by the roadside she managed to make her own repairs and went on.
 
  The women's activities will spread into the grandstands. A group of Cleveland women, Junior league members and members of the Women's Aero club, have been organized under Mrs. Gardner Dodge, 1938 E. 87th st., to act as hostesses through the boxes reserved for the flyers, and the lounge in the administration building where the flyers will collect for tea and talk between events.