Page:The Fun of It.pdf/161

Rh —certainly it was in none of the press reports I saw—that a plane had landed in exactly the same place twenty years before. That was when Harry N. Atwood flew a 30 h.p. Burgess-Wright biplane into the White House grounds on July 14, 1911, when he was presented by President Taft with a gold medal given by the Aero Club of Washington.

There should be use for giros as sportsmen pilots’ planes where large airports are not convenient. A smooth pasture or extra sized back yard should suffice for ordinary hopping up and down. Too, they may find a use as ferries about crowded city areas, where airline terminals because of high land values, are situated far from the business centers. Passengers may transfer to a waiting taxi-giro and be deposited much nearer their destination than thetransport liners could bring them. By the way, whenever in-town landings are discussed, the possi­bility of making them on roofs of buildings is brought up. It might be of interest to note that finding sufficient space is not the greatest problem. In most large cities area enough could be found. The real difficulty is the eddying of air currents in the canyons of the streets, which may adversely affect all types of aircraft when landing, dirigibles, airplanes and ’giros.

I have spoken of autogiros on one hand and con­ventional airplanes on the other. I do not wish to give the impression that the former are not air­planes because they apparently have no wings. Such is not strictly true. As everyone knows, Mr.