a REPLY to Hr. Loening by c. "Les" Morris Bendix Helicopter, Inc. At the Second Annual Helicopter Forum in Philadelphia, Mr. Grover Loening gave a most interestlng and enlightening talk which is reproduced within these pages. Much that he said was very appropriate and timely. The review of N.A.C.A. rotary wing projects to date, and the promise of detailed reports to come, certainly fall in that category. The arguments that are about to be propounded, therefore, should not be construed as questioning the major portion of his presentation. They are intended only to take issue with two specific points, viz: speed (and, incidentally thereto, ease of operation) ; and autorotation. On the matter of speed, Mr. Loening, to paraphrase another Forum statement, is perfectly right in seeking perfection; but he is perfectly wrong in expecting that it will ever be achieved. Therefore, let us admit that tremendous speeds are certainly desirable, but let us consider what may be possible even if they should never be attained. Mr. Loening speaks of "that one overwhelming requirement of speed in travel, without which no aircraft will prove itself of any serious wide utility." There are many thousands of war veterans who will take sharp issue with this statement because they owe their lives to the "grasshoppers"-those liaison planes that did yeoman service without ever achieving a speed of much more than 100 mph. Surely, saving of life is a very "serious utility" and it was made possible, not by high top speeds, but by low speeds for landing and take-off. But even were this not the case, it is difficult to believe that Piper, Stinson, Aeronca, Taylorcraft, Ercoupe, Republic, and a score of others would be bending every effort and spending millions of dollars to build something with no serious utility. They would not for one moment concur with Mr. Loening's statement that "No aircraft comes into its own that has not at least 150 mph cruising speed." For the present, there is a stupendous market for just such aircraft. To be sure, when reasonably priced helicopters ultimately become available, the fixed wing airplane will need a substantial margin of speed in order to retain its private owner market. But the helicopter itself, at least on the basis of current knowledge, would NEVER need more than an honest 100 mph cruising speed to have an almost limitless utility. As I once stated, "the entire, underlying "raisin d'erre" of the helicopter is ... its ability to stop ... " (Pioneering The Helicopter, McGraw-Hill, 1945, page 22.) As long as the helicopter retains this ability, it will be a useful vehicle. If, perchance, a fixed wing airplane should ever develop the same ability, the helicopter would be a dead duck. It is this very quality of stopping that will make the helicopter relatively easy to learn to fly. Don't chuckle, you who feel that only supermen can handle a helicopter. Bear in mind that stick-forces and vibration will not plague the pilot forever. Bear in mind, too, that it takes months of experience before you can park even an automobile snugly beside the curb. Why, then, do we have to insist that a helicopter pilot, to prove his competence, must land exactly on the center of a handkerchief? It's nice-it's skillful-it's inspiring. But is it really necessary for safety or utility? The real value of the helicopter is that the operator can stop, think, change his mind, try it over and over if necessary. Tragedies at railroad crossings occur only when the word "stop" is ignored in "Stop, Look and Listen." The foregoing is not intended to deny that the more speed the helicopter can achieve, the more useful it will be. But if its average cruising speed is sufficient to reduce even slightly the point-to-point travel-time required by other prevailing means of travel, its utility is immediately accepted. Thus for example, a speed of only 50 mph would be a God-send where dog-teams or mule-back are the only alternate media of transportation. And now to the second point - auto rotation. If this safety factor is ever omitted from civilian helicopters, I will be among the first to seek a new outlet for my ambitions. Granted that the engine manufacturers have made tremendous strides in building reliability into their product; nevertheless, I have but one life and, to me, it is extremely important. I have flown now for 18 years, and have still to experience my first engine failure in flight. However, my engine has acted pretty sick at times, and I never would have stayed in aviation if I had known that, should it fail completely, my wings would part company with the fuselage. Yet this is exactly what would result if autorotation were omitted from the helicopter. Mr. Loening is saying, in effect: "Engines are now so reliable that there is no longer any need to put twin engines in transport craft. One large engine in the nose is adequate. If it fails, it would simply 'be the luck of the draw!" In spite of the engine manufacturer's best effort, there have been many twin-engined airplanes that have come home on one engine. Yes, engines still are a mechanical complexity, and as long as they remain so, let's give the pilot an alternate way out, even if it means sacrificing a few miles per hour in speed.