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80 AERONAUTICS

in anyone. He loves to "put something over," whether the net gain to himself is five cents or five thousand dollars. His desire for power, for control, is keen. He does not actually love money; he says it is merely a commodity like coal that is essential to his business and his home, but he thoroughly dislikes being asked for cash. He will neglect to study financial reports, but if he is requested to supply any sizeable amount of cash, there is a conflagration and he immediately orders a retrenchment policy.

He is a lover of speed; in the air, in motor boats, in automobiles; and yet he dislikes making decisions. He is lacking in the social amenities, but is as individual as a tooth brush, and can always be amusing. He has been known to attend a dinner in Washington, and arrive at the New York office the next morning in his Tuxedo. He is not a man of varied interests; he is too much engrossed in himself for that. He reads but little; he plays comparatively little; all his life is woven around his airplanes.
 
Is that the secret of his success? I don't think so. I believe his success is due to an uncanny intuition about airplane design and construction; to the fact that the war came at the most opportune time for his fortune; and to the fact that he has been sufficiently far sighted to capitalize on his war time reputation. He is shrewd, clever, astute, and a good bargainer.

He  has gone far. With his present business connections in the United States, I believe that his genius will always dominate the trend of aviation.

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Airing Armament Secrets
By John Goldstrom

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What Men Flyers Think of Women Pilots
(continued from page 30)

The average woman pilot, if such a person could be found, would I think rate about as well as the average male pilot of equal opportunity and experience.

One dangerous generalization which men are apt to make and which was promptly made in our discussion, would thus appear to be somewhat unjust. Before our talk had gone very far it appeared that most of the men present believed that the usual motive leading women into aviation was the desire for publicity. Instances were advanced and names were mentioned. Thus it was decided that since women for the most part went into aviation with unworthy ideas in their heads, their subsequent careers in that field very naturally tended to turn out a flop.

At this point I called attention to the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago Benjamin Franklin said, "Affect not to be seen, and Men will less see thy Weakness. They that shew more than they are, raise an Expectation they cannot answer; and so lose their credit as soon as they are found out." Benjamin Franklin was a man and represented the masculine point of view, but he told the truth even so. Applying his remark to the topic under discussion I suggested that men are far more critical of women than they are of each other, both in the cockpit of an airplane and everywhere else in life. The assembled flyers agreed.

A woman who is not an unusually good pilot had either better give up flying altogether or reconcile herself to the idea that she will be the object of much painstaking criticism. Fairly or unfairly, her mistakes are noticed more than those of a man. Suppose two pilots, one a man and the other a woman, crack up two ships of the same make, under the same circumstances, and at the same time, the woman will receive far more publicity than the man, together with the patronizing comment from the masculine half of the world that while as for the man the crash was a more or less astonishing exception to the rule of things, in the case of the woman it was no more than to be expected.

The one hopeful thought that can be drawn from this situation (and this thought did not come out in the discussion) is the fact that if women are generally expected not to make good as flyers then those women who do make good are of real value to the airplane industry. A good woman pilot bring as much favorable