Word: chamberlin
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Picturesque Bert Acosta, who later flew to France with Byrd, and ill-starred Lloyd Bertaud, who later was lost attempting the flight to Rome in Old Glory, were favored by Mr. Levine. Col. Chamberlin got the job because Inventor Giuseppe M. Bellanca, designer of the Columbia, said he flew well no matter how he filmed and weighed a lot less than either Acosta or Bertaud...
...very midst of all the heated bickering, meanwhile, Charles Augustus Lindbergh set out from the very field where the Columbia lay fueled and ready to start, touching ground again 33 hours and 29 minutes later in mad Paris. Chamberlin had to be content to finish second in the race across the Atlantic. Half in admiration, he reports Mr. Levine in love with flying. Halfway across the Atlantic Enthusiast Levine forced the Columbia into a 17,000-foot drop from which she was extracted with difficulty. Over Germany, Levine ordered the plane flown until the last drop of gas was gone...
Inventor Bellanca holds Col. Chamberlin's unqualified admiration. He reveals that Bellanca was spurned by the War Department in 1917 and 1918 when he offered to build a bombing plane, powered with two Liberty motors, that would have a speed of 183 miles an hour fully loaded with bombs, machine guns, and crew. The Government laughed at this Sicilian dreamer, although he always lived up to his promises. Incidentally, the plans still exist today and Col. Chamberlin believes that the ship, if built, would "outperform any bombing plane now in the possession of the Army or Navy...
Others recognized Bellanca's merit. Col. Chamberlin reports that Lindbergh tried to buy the Columbia from Mr. Levine and the Wright Company, which supplied the motor. Both refused to sell, satisfied that his attempt to fly to Paris alone and in a land machine was "suicide...
...book Col. Chamberlin gives thanks to Carl B. Allen, reporter on aviation for the New York World, who helped him write it. In the trade Allen would be known as a "ghost-writer...