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From: Carl Byoir & Associates, Inc.
10 E. 40th Street, MU 6-3200
New York 16, N.Y.

For: BENDIX AVIATION CORPORATION
August 17, 1953

For Immediate Release

AIR FORCE ENTERS SABREJETS
IN BENDIX TROPHY SPEED RACE 

The Bendix Trophy speed dash from California to Dayton, Ohio on Sept. 5 will be an Air Force event this year. Eight Sabrejet pilots seeking a new record will fly the 1,800-mile course at speeds over 600 miles per hour when the National Aircraft Show opens for its Labor Day week-end festivities.

Crack pilots of four Air Force commands are preparing for the classic cross-country trophy flight sponsored by the Bendix Aviation Corporation. They will fly from Edwards Air Force Base at Muroc Dry Lake, finish at the Cox Municipal Airport outside Dayton and land at the Patterson Air Force Base 10 1/2 miles away.

Malcolm P. Ferguson, president of Bendix, will greet them and bring them back by helicopter to the crowds where the flyer who has covered the distance in the shortest elapsed time will be named winner of the top Bendix trophy. Second and third place trophy winners will also be announced. They will receive their awards officially the next day, Sunday.

The pilots will represent the Air Defense Command, Tactical Air Command, Air Research and Development Command and the Air Proving Ground Command; each will have two of its top pilots in the trophy event.

They will be trying to break the record set by Col. Keith K. Compton, USAF, in 1951 when he flew from Edwards A.F.B. to Detroit in 3 hours, 27 minutes, 65.4 seconds for an average speed of 553.761 m.p.h.

The first pilot ever to win a Bendix trophy was General Jimmy Doolittle, who as a major in 1931 led the field from Los Angeles to Cleveland. It took him 9 hours, 

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