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16
T
SILHOUETTES

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PAUL LUKAS

TRAVEL is one of Paul Lukas' chief delights. That ought to come about naturally, because he was born travelling. He arrived on May 26, 1893, in a railroad train just as it was snorting into Budapest from the provinces. Continuing from this flying start in life, he was sent to the "gymnasium" until he was eighteen years old. After his graduation he exercised his right to take the enforced year of military training upon request prior to his twenty-first year, so he volunteered on October 1, 1913. He was assigned to the Fourth Regiment of Hungarian Dragoons. Here he was when the Great War broke in 1914, picked him up and whirled him into its maelstrom. Paul was soon a corporal. Not being from the same province as his fellows, he was not selected to go to the officers' school. He served three years until he collected a wound stripe. After he had convalesced, he applied for the flying service and was accepted.

In the summer of 1917 the Hungarians had few planes; their morale was shattered and their equipment poor. Thirty hours aloft was the extent of young Lukas' flying, when he was sent to a repair depot back of the lines for testing reconditioned planes, a job that was no sinecure. He never crashed, was never shot down, did not know the thrill of sending down an enemy airman. But before the armistice caught up with him, he had learned to love flying for its own sake, a pleasure he had little opportunity to indulge until after he came to America.

In 1927 he flew in Paramount's "Young Eagles," getting in some seven hours' flying dual with Captain E. H. Robinson, the veteran picture flier. This experience revved up his desire to fly his own plane, and shortly afterward he purchased his first ship, a Fairchild KR with a 165 Wright J-6. Eventually he traded in this job for his present Stearman c4, powered by a Wright J-6.

Despite his liking for flying, Lukas has had difficulty in flying 100 hours in recent years. Since his arrival in this country, he has been in some forty-odd pictures. At one time he worked throughout the whole sequence of ten photoplay in the space of fifteen months. Although he is under contract to Universal, he is quite often loaned out to other companies after the strange manner of Hollywood. So much work is not to his liking.

"Sometimes I go mad—quite mad!" he said to me, when we were speaking of working under the glare and heat of lights in a flood of California sunshine. "It is too much. One man cannot stand it. For escape I get in my plane and fly, fly, fly. I am in need of a change. I need to see some new faces, to be in quite a different atmosphere. After six years in Hollywood..." He shook his graying head and wiped perspiration from his brow.

Flying provides him with an easy escape from the demands of the workaday week. Although he did manage to get away for a short stay in Europe last summer, he usually takes his vacation within a cruising range. A favorite place is a fishing lake high up in the Sierras, not far from Reno. He won't tell its location—for very good reasons. Sometimes he flies to various parts of California, to Mexico, sometimes he flies for a lunch engagement to Caliente or Santa Barbara. His ambition is to fly his ship to New Orleans some day when he can find the time. When it isn't possible for him to take a longer hop he goes out to the United Airport—that amazing place where starts come out in the sky in the daytime—and there he practices landings, take-offs and aerobatics. He executes slow rolls to maintain his feel and control, and now and then he does a spin for precision. Beyond that he believes it unnecessary and not beneficial to go. He always carries a chute which, so far, he has not had to use. He admits he made a big mistake in taking his wife for a stunt rude some time ago, which seems to have effectually nipped her enthusiasm in the bud. She has been up for only 25 hours.

LUKAS has no fear in the air, but he has no desire to do any blind flying. He is particular to be known as a conservative, fair-weather pilot. He has had two forced landings which he says didn't bother him much. He would rather have a forced landing in an airplane—granting a clear day over good country—than a blowout in a motor car at high speed. Not being one of those people who talk high, wide, and handsome about flying, he refuses to make any authoritative comments on it. He says that a man with his experience in the air really knows very little, except that it is a great relaxation and the greatest of sports. Whether he has friends in the plane or whether he is alone, he always keeps a calculating eye on his altimeter so that, if any mischance should occur, he will be in a position to pick a smooth place to land. When he gets in a mean spot [[page torn]] and make [[page torn]]

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