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TON POST: SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 1936

Experts Favor
New Zeppelins,
Fleet of Blimps

Shenandoah Survivor Asks
Lighter-Than-Air Craft
at Senate Hearing.

By the Associated Press.

Government construction of a fleet of commercial lighter-than-air craft, and the replacement of the ill-fated Akron and Macon with new airships for joint Army and Navy use, was recommended to a Senate Air Safety Committee yesterday by aviation experts. 

Among the witnesses was Comdr. Charles E. Rosendahl, who survived the crash of the Shenandoah. He pleaded with the committee to put fear behind, and look upon the Zeppelin-type craft as a necessary part of the air transporation and defence system.

Backing up Rosendahl was the testimony of S. A. Knowles, of the Goodyear Zeppelin Corp. of Akron, Ohio, and a statement by Paul W. Litchfield, president of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The Goodyear organization built the Akron, which crashed in a storm off the New Jersey coast, and the Macon, which was destroyed in the ocean off California a few months later. 

Construction Urged.

Rosendahl spoke briefly, to urge construction of at least one Zeppelin-type dirigible, to be exchanged between the Navy and Army every few months, to train personnel in the operation of such craft. 

Knowles proposed a type of Government subsidy, similar to that provided the merchant marine, to start a passenger and mail service between America, Europe and the Far East. He said this would be one way of meeting the competition of France and England with their new passenger liners, the Normandie and Queen Mary. 

He advocated a co-operative system with Germany, since that nation had made a success of oversea air transportation. 

Fleet of Airships. 

"For half the cost of a super liner," he said, "you can build a whole fleet of airships, build terminals, and start a service that will cut transportation time in half."

Litchfield argued that the airship was an economical mode of fast transportation for long distance flights.

Increased safety on present airlines, through more thorough Government inspection, was urged by Edgar S. Gorrell, president of the Air Transport Association of America. He said 60 inspectors of the Bureau of Air Commerce had the task of examining 14,000 licensed pilots, 24,000 student pilots, 8,000 airplanes and 2,500 mechanics.


ST. ALBANS DAILY MESSENGER MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1937

COL. GORRELL IS NORWICH SPEAKER
Air Transport Assn. Head Commencement Speaker AT Northfield

   NORTHFIELD, June 7--(AP)--The fundamental concepts to carried through life, Colonel Edgar S. Gorrell, president of the Air Transport Asociation of America, told the graduating class at Norwich university today, were: "Duty, honor and country." "It is not an idle statement," Col. Gorrell continued, "to say that democratic institutions are with us today on trial. I am convinced that our continued democracy must depend not alone upon the genius, capacity and unselfishness of our leaders of thought in the professional world, but must depend primarily upon such men as you, imbued with the traditions of Norwich, love of country, duty to our fellowmen and above all, honor upon all occasion."
    
   Communism and other "isms" he declared, would destroy this land of freedom unless college graduates "such as you can prevail over those from other, and even larger institutions in which the 'widow's mite of learning' has not been accompanied by devotion to the fundamental principles of duty, honor and country."
   Col. Gorrell received an honorary degree of doctor of science.
   Other honorary degrees were conferred as follows:
   Doctor of Science,  Governor George D. Aiken of Vermont; Doctor of Laws, Walter Allen Dane, Newton, Mass., Boston  attorney who was confidential secretary to the secretary of the navy in 1907; Doctor of Science Willis Ray Gregg, chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau at Washington; Doctor of Laws Jerome Davis Greene, Cambridge, Mass., director of the Harvard tercentenary celebration;  Master of Science, Eugene Leslie White, New York, prominent in utility company cirles.

URGES CLOSING OF WEATHER 'GAPS'

Col. Gorrell Says Need Is Felt for Aviation Directions

   The need for a more thorough coverage of atmospheric conditions throughout the United States in aviation directions was stressed today by Colonel Edgar S. Gorrell.
   He is the 38th person in the United States to fly an airplane; during the World war he was chief of staff of the U. S. A. Air Corps; he is now president of Air Transport Association of America. He flew his ship into New Orleans.
   If atmospheric conditions are not thoroughly and immediately reported, the American sky fleets might find themselves in the middle of a bad fix some day when they respond to a mobilization order to defend against foreign attack, he said.
   Closing these "gaps" in the weather bureau system, he said, would improve the service to farmers, foresters, fishermen and mariners.
   Louisiana needs these developments in the interest of aviation, he said:  More inclusive reports from ships at sea at New Orleans; more weather reports at Alexandria; meteorological personnel at Baton Rouge, Monroe, Shreveport, Lake Charles and Port Eads. Also, pilot-balloon stations at Lake Charles and Shreveport.
   Colonel Gorrell is today's speaker before the Young Men's Business Club in the Roosevelt.