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runway experts than one imagines could exist. Probably the greatest and most costly comedy of errors and regrettable fiasco that has ever revolved around the planning and building of an airport is the Idlewild Airport development in New York. The air line pilots have long recommended that modern airports utilize the parallel runway layout, and the recommendations they have consistently made are included in AN EDITORIAL FROM THE JANUARY 1944 EDITION OF THE AIR LINE PILOT, MARKED ENCLOSURE NO. 3. Against the recommendations of the air line pilots, the City of New York, backed by the air lines and by the Administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, came forth with the so-called tangential airport runway plan, a monstrosity of imperfection and an invitation to disaster. 

Unless halted, this will again be repeated in Chicago. The voice of the air line pilots is strong, but it becomes stilled, indeed, when money becomes the principal pressure factor. In this strange series of happenings, the rent from air line companies, who are advocates of the tangential runway layout plan for New York's Idlewild Airport, had a strong influence in the wrong direction and against air safety. They are now busy perpetrating the same mistakes in the planning and building of the Douglas Airport in Chicago.

The air line pilots recommended that the parallel type runways be required as standard by the federal government for all airports that receive federal grants of money for their construction. The failure of the federal civil air regulatory agency to take a sufficiently strong stand against the air lines and the builders of air line aircraft and the removing by the CAB of the top fixed stalling speed limitation from Part 04 of the Civil Air Regulations have caused the development of flying fields to branch in one direction and the development of performance of air line aircraft to branch into another. The two are out of gear; they are no longer enmeshed or related. The air line pilots repeat, this has been an amazingly common mistake, mounting into millions upon millions of dollars; in fact, untold millions.

What can be done to remedy the situation? Some powerful non-political force of federal government will have to be established by the legislative branches of our government to force the engineers of air line equipment and the airport engineers to get together along sane and common-sense lines. Both will have to be persuaded to listen to the practical-minded men in the industry and the air line pilots, the ones who operate the aircraft, who have a first-hand knowledge of the practical problems involved. A UNIFORM FEDERAL AIRPORT AND AIR LINE AIRPLANE ENGINEERING PLAN MUST BE CREATED AND PLACED INTO EFFECT.

LET US TAKE A GOOD SQUARE, IMPARTIAL LOOK INTO OUR AIR LINE ACCIDENT SITUATION. The steady chain of air line accidents is broken only by miracles -- miracles of escape. LET US TURN TO PAGES 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, AND 16 OF ENSLURE NO. 4. This list of accidents ends with the one on January 12, 1947. The summation record of air line

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