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TIME
THE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE

TIME & LIFE BUILDING
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
NEW YORK 20

EDITORIAL OFFICES

September 6, 1946

Mr. Herbert L. Sharlock
Bendix Aviation Corporation 
Fisher Building
Detroit, Michigan

Dear Mr. Sharlock:

Thanks again for your help and hospitality in Cleveland last week.

I was able to get a lot of information from Paul Mantz along the lines TIME wanted. But, in usual TIME fashion, most of it never got into the story because of space limitations. However, some of the residue may turn up in LIFE's story on the air races (if LIFE does one) or in some future TIME story on Paul Mantz.

I am enclosing a few tear sheets of the story as it appeared. I think that the most interesting point which did not appear in the story and which you may find useful for your company paper is this:  The big question which faced all the Bendix contestants was whether to go non-stop or to refuel en route.  Those who elected to refuel had troubles which proved Mantz' wisdom in deciding to go non-stop.  Eddy, who came in fourth, said he wasted almost half an hour refueling in Denver.  The weather was bad and he had to make a time-wasting instrument let-down to get into the field.  Col. Leon Gray, who flew the P-80 which made the best time, said that the refueling crew put "200 gallons in my tanks and 70 into the cockpit."  Jackie Cochran's trouble with her wing tanks (one of them tore a hole in her flap when she dropped her tanks) showed that Mantz was wise not to use them.

Mantz solved the fuel problem by turning his wings into gas tanks.  He merely flushed them out, plugged all leaks, put a filler cap on top of the wing, put in a lead to carry the gas from the wing to the engine--and filled his wings with gas.  This enabled him to carry over 700 gallons without any exterior wing tanks (which slow a plane down almost 20 miles an hour).  This, in my opinion, was the largest single factor in winning the race for Paul.

I hope you can use this stuff.

Please look me up here at TIME if you ever get to New York.  And thanks again for being so nice to me in Cleveland.

Sincerely yours, 
Warren H. Goodman [[signature]]
Warren H. Goodman.