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Staff Report Monthly Highlights and Sidelights from NAA's Capitol City Headquarters [[Image]] • Note of Thanks... Dear Mr. Whitener: As a member of the National Aviation Education Council, I wish to express my gratitude and thanks for your contribution of financial aid and the publication NATIONAL AERONAUTICS to NAEC. Your contributions are one of the primary helps responsible for my renewed and increased interests in NAEC. Kenneth E. Lenz Trans World Airlines • We Owe A Debt... Dear Ralph: We have adequately honored with the Collier Trophy, the Wright Brothers Trophy, and other established awards those men and women who have contributed to the furtherance of mankind's flight in the air and in space. Yet it occurs to me that we have perhaps neglected a quiet unassuming, and little-known man who not only saw the beginnings of modern rocketry but has spent nearly 35 years in the field, making him probably the oldest American rocket engineer. I refer to Charles W. Mansur of 1717 Princess Jeanne Drive, Las Crucs, New Mexico. Mr. Mansur went to work as assistant to Dr. Robert H. Goddard in Worcester, Mass., in November 1929. He remained with Dr.Goddard until the rocket pioneer's death in 1945. Since then, he has been associated with Curtiss-Wright and White Sands Missile Range as a rocket engineer. He grew up with rocketry in America. Mr. Mansur assisted Dr. Goddard in the construction and launching of a rocket which, on 20 April 1938 near Roswell, New Mexico, carried an official NAA barograph. NAA appointed a committee of officers from the military institute at Roswell to act as witnesses and observers. NAA archives should provide documentation for this. Isn't it possible that this was the first time NAA officially measured and certified the flight of a rocket for an achieved altitude? If so, Mr. Mansur certainly participated in an aero-space "first" for America. I should like to suggest the possibility that the NAA consider a suitable award or honor for Mr. Mansur, possibly a special award in view of the special and outstanding circumstances of his life's work. If necessary, I would be pleased to assemble any necessary documentation. Many honors have been heaped upon Dr. Goddard's widow and upon other individuals, both American and foreign-born, who have laid the foundations for our present space achievements. I believe that some honor should come to a quiet and hard-working Yankee who stuck it out with Dr. Goddard through the lean years of the Depression and who has been diligently at work in the field of rocketry ever since. The aero-space activity of this action owes a debt of gratitude to Charles W. Mansur. I think it is high time that we acknowledged this. G. Harry Stein, President Nat'l Association of Rocketry • Airplanes and Pin Balls... Dear Sir: Congratulations on a splendid editorial in the April edition. "Don't Fence Them Out!" May more young people become closer to airplanes and less familiar with pinball machines, is also my earnest hope. Enclosed is an account of recent field trip taken by our sixth grade students to the Portland International Airport and the Oregon Air Guard facilities at the nearby Air Base. It was a genuine revelation to these children. They'll never be the same. I'm a "johnny-come-lately" to aviation as a result of a four-weeks Aerospace Workshop at Portland Air Base last summer. All the chinks in my aerospace knowledge are neatly filled with enthusiasm, so I'm trying to make up for lost time. Your magazine is a real source for current thoughts from great minds on the problems and goals of the aviation industry. Good luck in your constant endeavor to promote the best in air travel and air transport, while you bolster the weak spots. Jim Boyle Sixth Grade Teacher Independence, Ore. • Championship News... The Athol Daily News of Athol Mass., has announced that, from May through September, it will publish 60 special issues of its newspaper on the Sixth World Parachuting Championship, to be held in nearby Orange from August 11 to September 3. The special issues will be filled with accurate and detailed accounts of the history-making events, direct from Official Championship Headquarters, written by a special staff of news correspondents with commentaries by expert parachutists. You can receive these 60 special issues anywhere in the United States for $4.25 total cost. Just send your name and address to the Athol Daily News, 536 Main Street, Athol, Mass., along with your check or money order for $4.25, and ask for the Parachute Special. We have seen the first issue and it had nothing in it but parachute news. • With Deep Regret... Last month, we received word from the Treasurer of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of NAA. Miss Marion D. Bowler, that Miss Edythe M. Weichselbaum, a long-time member of the Chapter and NAA, had passed away. In the same month, we received word from the Masonic Home and Hospital in Wallingford, Connecticut, that Miss May Kellogg Arnold, also a long-time member of NAA had passed away. Miss Arnold worked for NAA for several years as a secretary, leaving in 1949. We deeply regret this sad news and extend our deepest sympathies to the families of both. • Double Thanks... Dear Mr. Whitener: As a worker in the D.C. Public Schools as well as a member of the Board of Directors of N.A.E.C., I thank you for two important contributions. The financial aid your Association makes to N.A.E.C. is of major importance. Believe me, as a supervisor and curriculum worker in our school system, I see the value of the splendid materials developed, distributed and shared with many eager students. Then too, I appreciate and use in a number of ways, the magazine. NATIONAL AERONAUTICS. Thank you! Mrs. Juanita S. Winn Supervising Director Dept. of Supervision & Inst'n D.C. Elementary Schools 22 NATIONAL AERONAUTICS June 1962
