Page:The Fun of It.pdf/119

Rh NC 7952. Of course, all the planes on the airlines have a “C” license.

The Department also issues experimental li­censes to be used on planes undergoing certain tests or being built. These numbers are preceded by an “X”.

When a pilot changes any of the details of con­struction already approved by the Department of Commerce, he must notify an inspector and he then usually receives a restricted or “R” license, depend­ing on the character of his alterations. Colonel Lindbergh’s plane is an example for his number is NR 211.

With the increased number of airplanes to be licensed, the Department has lately been adding a division to the regular NC. Thus, the plane in which I established the first woman’s speed record bore the number NC 497 H.

Now and then, a plane with numbers but no let­ters at all will be seen. That marking shows it can­not be licensed for some reason but is only identi­fied. (G-EBUG and her kind, when first im­ported from England, bore only identification num­bers.) Planes of the Department of Commerce all bear an S and are usually low numbers, NS 1, 2, 3, and so on.