Warsaw's all-weather municipal airport moves closer to completion each day now, to assure an adequate field with paved runway, proper drainage, manhole, etc., by next spring.

On the motion of Morrison Rockhill, local member of the state aeronautics board, the state director was authorized to enter into "an agency agreement" with the aeronautics board of Warsaw, to further the work one more step. I'm not sure myself what it all means, except this I know: in order to secure Federal airport aid funds and match these funds with local money, satisfy everyone from the local council to the Federal bureaus, requires infinite patience, tact and perserverance.

It begins now to appear that we really will have a completed A-1 airport by spring.

At Wabash, Ind., they are just getting underway. At the same time, the Warsaw project was approved for the actual work, Wabash had only secured approval of its airport site. the new airport at Wabash will be located along road 115, contains 120 acres of ground. I feel deeply for the suffering their aviation board must yet go through, before they actually proceed as far as Warsaw has gone. Red-tape, ugh!

 

The Warsaw Aero club executive board, which consists of all the operators and a sprinkling of private pilots, have revitalized their committees, to start functioning immediately. Heads of various committees are: airmarking, E. Kaye-Smith; flight committee, Jack Doswell; social committee, Max Weirick; house committee, Claude Harmon; finance committee, Gene Beigh.

Doswell will take over the running of the New Year's day airplane sweepstakes, assisted by Kaye-Smith. The rules have been changed to make it a solo race.

The pilot must do his own flying and his own navigating in order to win. The sweepstakes will start at Smith Field and the ships will cross the finish line at Warsaw Municipal, landing there to have gasoline consumption measured.

There is a most economical speed at which every airplane flies. A pilot who advances his throttle to pass another airplane will use up too much gas to win. On the other hand, if he holds back too much, he will travel too slowly and will also lose out. Then the pilot has two other things to worry about, traveling in a straight line over the ground, and his altitude. He can lose out by improper navigating, causing his ship to travel more miles than some other plane. Or he can fail to hold a steady altitude, losing out because he wastes time and fuel climbing up and dropping down.

Among those pilots so far entered are Bill VanDoran, Deloss Phillips, Jay Schue, Fred Strauss, Bob Herendeen, Matt Dalton, and others. The deadline for entering the sweepstakes has been extended to Christmas day, December 25. Get a blank from one of the operators, or just place your name, address and plane you will fly on a piece of paper, mail it to any of the local operators. The committee will contact you with further details of the race.

The course will be announced later.

The winner becomes the first pilot to have his name engraved on the Sky Writing trophy.

Flying Fire Chief
Jay Schue, Winona Lake fire chief, and his pal, Carl Weirick, took off Friday for Lansing, Mich., to get a part for one of the fog nozzles on the new Winona fire truck. The piece was lost in Warsaw, while Winona was assisting the local department on a bad fire. the boys should make the round trip easily in one day and have lots of time to spend in Lansing.

Warsaw Daily Times Dec. 19, 1947

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