o/o[ 3, 9\(9. 20 'Iuesaay, Afarcli 22, 1994 Section of tfie Salem :J{f,ws

tless ex I • Sl

disette' s 'Hot Shot' ullins flying omb

1yVorld War I Naval pilot created first self-flying airplane in 1916

By Dick Wootten A WORLD WAR HI

n1«ev1'n<eo because of the intercontinental missile stan­doff among the super powers?

If that is true, then Salem, Ohio played a pioneering role in keeping peace during the Cold War.

The idea of a pilotless explo­sive that would flv longer dis­tances than artillery shells, was developed in Salem at the W .H. Mullins Co. during World War I by aviator Robert Modisette, a vice president of Mullins and also the son-in-law of W.H. Mullins.

The Mullins flying bomb took the form of an seaplane laden with bombs.

Pre-set mechanical devices behind the propellers allowed the plane to take off in a pre­determined direction and fly a certain distance, determined by accurate map reading,· until it was over the target. A dock inside the plane - set like a time bomb - would activate at the correct time based on air speed. When the clock "went off" the bomb bay doors opened and three 65-pound bombs dropped. The doors were connected by wires to three pins in each wing, upper and lower. When the doors opened, the pins were pulled from wing fittings and the wings fell off. Ideally, it all landed on the enemy. The idea of the wings coming off was to destroy the plane so the Ger­mans wouldn't be able to learn from 1t. The idea of both bombs and a plane plummeting to earth at the enemy added to the weapon's psychological effect.

Sound fantastic - especially at a time before the· develop­ment of radio-controlled flight?

Perhaps it was, but according to Modisette, who was inter­viewed for a Flying Magazine article in 1944, it worked. Af­ter developing the robot born-

ber, Modisette became a Navy flyer and towards the end of the war demonstrated his plane­for the Navy. The war ended before the plane could be put into production.

Four test flights 1vcre made. The first, set for a 90-mile flight, encountered an unex­pected change in wind direc­tion, but the bombs and the plane fell in the "general area" of the target. Three other demonstrations were of shorter distances and "were almost right on the bull's eye," said Modisette.

Modisette said he built the first self-flying plane in 1916 for Mullins. "It was my belief at that time that airplanes had an extremely important future in military usage, so we started designing them," he said. "We were especially interested in producing training planes for would-be pilots. At that time there was nothing but the fin­ished combat plane.

The article noted, "Mullin's first venture in this new field was a training aid that resem­bles the present day Link Trainer (a stationary cockpit used to familiarize student pilots with instruments). Next came an advanced 'semi-flying' trainer that could rise only six feet off the ground. Finally they developed a full-sized, twin­engined biplane that really could get up in the air and cruise for miles. It was from this plane that the self-flying bomber was developed.

"He called the bomber crea­tion the 'Hot Shot.' It was built of scrap spruce, rejected airp­lane doth and dope at a total cost of $452. Its prototype, the orthodox trainer regularly sold by the Mullins firm to pilots and flying school!?, had cost $2,450 to build.

The article also said that Modisette' s pilotless bomber pioneered many features of the German pilotless bomb of World War II, the V-1 winged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~·~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-

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The Mullins "Hot Shot" robot bomber, manufactured during World War I in Salem, had a wingspread of 46 feet and measured ~9 ft· 8 inches from nose to tail-, Unloaded, it weighed 1,790 pounds and carried three bombs weighing 65 pounds each. When piloted the seaplane could be flown again. Its self-propelled trip would be its last one.

rocket, which was first equipped with a cockpit. The manned V-1 was conceived as a suicide plane, and later con­verted to a remote-controlled pilotless bomb.

When Modisette was inter­viewed for the article in 1944 he was working in Downey, Calif. as a technical expert at Consolidated Vultee Field Divi­sion. He was concerned with speeding up the production of the Liberator bombers. . Tom Neely, the grandson of W.H. Mullins and nephew of Modisette recalls his uncle as a tall, distinguished gentleman with a mustache. "I believe he had gone to Yale," said Neely, who now lives in San Marino, Calif. "He even could be called flamboyant, I guess. He drove nice cars, was socially promi­nent, and for a time was presi­dent of the Annandale (Calif.) County Club."

Neely, -who served as a Navy pilot in World War II in the Pacific, where he flew a dive bomber, said he was unaware of his uncle's role in develop­ing the pilotless bomber.

"I do remember that during World War II when they wanted to transfer me to fly for the Marines, I was terribly upset.

"I wanted to be a Navy pilot like Uncle Bob."

(We thank Dan Hagedorn of the When bomb bays opened on the Modisette plane, wings were National Air and Space Museum for automatically jettisoned. this { revented re-use by the enemy supplying infor71U1:tion for this article.) and added to a 'psychologica effect."

Expert documents Spirit of St. Louis H E WAS YOUNG,

handsome - and in the minds of a country enchanted by the mystery and wonder of flight - a hero.

When Charles Lindbergh toured the United States in 1927 after his first solo flight across the Atlantic, he ignited a passion for aviation in small towns and big cities alike.

"When he came into town it was hard to control peo­ple," says Ev Cassagneres of Cheshire, Conn., a recog­nized expert on Lindbergh's airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, and other aircraft built by the airplane's manufac­turer, California-based Ryan Airlines, Inc.

"Schools were let out, kids were carted to see him. Some made arrangements to have him fly over their town or their schools if he couldn't land there, and he accommo­dated them."

Cassagneres has written two books on Ryan aircraft. And he has spent the past 20 years trying to capture, and document, the "goodwill" tours Lindbergh made after his Atlantic flight - first in Canada and the United States, ·and then through Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Cuba. -

"First off, he was a hero," Cassagneres says. "Everyone fell in love with the guy, not only because of what he did, but because of his character. He was a Minnesota farm boy who was highly intelli­gent and humble. He believed in aviation and was convinced that it was the way to go. Because of his

. visits, the politicians said, 'Let's build that airport. It can bring business in."'

The project -to document the history of Lindbergh's plane is a race against time. Cassagneres is looking for anyone who has anecdotes, photographs or personal sto­ries about the stops Lind­bergh made during his tours before the airplane was retired to the Smithsonian.

"The people I need to reach are in their 70s," he says. ''They're dying off and I'm desperate to reach the survivors and their offspring. I also want to get in touch with mechanics who worked on the aircraft. Are they still around? Are their sons and daughters still around? May­be they remember or have pictures."

Cassagneres' metal file cabinets are overflowing with what he says is the largest documented and organized collection of photographs on the Spirit of St. Louis. A nearly finished

"'model of the Spirit - which a friend spent 14 years assembling - sits inside a Plexiglas case.

Cassagneres wasn't even born when Lindbergh took his trans-Atlantic flight. But the excitement about Lind­bergh was still simmering when he was a boy. Like others on his street, he built a model of the Spirit. Later he became a pilot himself.

''The Spirit of St. Louis is sometimes called the icon of American historical aircraft," he says. "So to be- the first person to be documenting and writing the history of that airplane is pretty excit­ing. I'm very proud of it."

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Amelia Earhart's death reat unsolved mystery

By Jules Loh Associated Press

W HEN CHARLES LIND­bergh flew the Atlantic

and Amelia Earhart vanished in the Pacific their names went from the headlines to the his­tory books and finally, as hap­pens with heroes, into the national mythology.

Long before anybody ever heard of a School Book Depo­sitory or a grassy knoll there was the cry: The king is dead, long live the king.

No easy solution will suffice for the wretched murder of the hero's son; no simple solution to the mystery of the heroine's death. Long live Charles and Amelia.

But today there seems to be a more than cyclical interest. Book writers, historians, TV documentarians, filmmakers, advertising copywriters and others apparently have decided that both are hot topics.

Especially Earhart. Most of the new interest, however, focuses on a new discovery -that America's favorite missing person is more than just the subject of the 20th century's favorite mystery but also a most interesting person in her own right. The new outpouring about Earhart is mainly a redis­covery of the personality that vanished with her, the essential Amelia.

At least that is the explana­tion most give for the sudden explosion of Ameliana.

"Everywhere I look," says

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Susan Ware, "Amelia keeps popping up, and not just in books and on the tube. Here's a Gap ad, for heaven's sake, and there's Amelia looking teriffic in khaki pants."

Susan Ware, a 43-year-old social historian who teaches at New York University, is one of the rediscoverers. Her new book, "Still Missing," makes the point that Earhart, a pro­duct of the '30s, remains very much a woman of the '90s in her looks, dress and commit­ment to feminism.

And why, at the same time. a corollary interest in Lindbergh? The reason is less apparent.

Marshall Fishwick, a Virginia Tech professor of humanities who specializes in popular cul­ture, speculates that the interest in both "reflects our yearning for heroes in the age of anti­heroes."

Whatever the reason, since 1987, the SOth anniversary of her final flight, the Library of Congress lists more than two dozen titles about Amelia Ear­hart. Susan Ware's biography came out last October. A one­hour documentary on Earhart appeared last November on PBS' s American Experience series. In the past six months two new books (two more!) purport to solve the mvsterv of

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her disappearance. And next July, Turner Network Televi­sion will serve up a two-hour movie with Dianne Keaton playing Amelia.

As for Lindbergh, the Library of Congress lists 10 new titles in the past nine years, and one publisher, Harvest Books, offers in its spring ca ta log reissues of two books about the couple by Anne Morrow Lind­bergh and a third by Charles with a new introduction b7 his son. These and most o the others deal with Lindbergh the aviator, the conservationist, the thinker.

But four of those new books return to the never-ending question. Indeeed, one author, Gregory Alhgren, simply made it the title of his 1992 book: "The Crime of the Century: the Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax." Another recent book listing is a novel based on the crime. The latest nonfiction entry, pub­lished last year, is a 464-page

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~jcontinued from page 2 ~~~,, ~j............ _............,~,

~ --------------- ~ analysis by Noel Behn who likewise concludes that the wrong man was executed. And there has been at least one play.

Both the PBS Earhart documentary (which its pro­ducers say will surely be shown again) and the TNT film 1elied heavily on a 1989 biogra­phy by Doris Rich published by the Smithsonian Institution.

'·Doris' book and another by lvlarv L.ovell that came out at the -same time were really the

good biographie-s of Amelia up until then." said Tom Crouch of the Smithso­::-_iim's Air anci. Space Museum.

"!'1'1. giad to see this new one 3usan 'Nare. It's excellent.

is an awfuilv interest­ing human oeing. I get a lot of questions about her disappear­ance and often tell people they ought to pay as much attention to her life as to her death."

But, savs Crouch, the fact remains that it was the great unsolved mystery of her death that set off the current interest in her life. In fact, he believes the seeds of the current Earhart revival were sown when Richard Gillespie, who heads an organization devoted to aviation history, returned from the South Pacific four years ago with artifacts he claimed were from Earhart's plane.

"They weren't," said Crouch, "But Rick and I have been arguing about it ever since."

With interest in Earhart revived, their argument has taken on aspects of a road show for aviation groups. Last fall they appeared at the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis and went at it again. "Connie Chung had me on just last week," said Crouch.

Now two new books are out adding fuel to the Earhart mystery.

To review, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, off on a well-promoted round-the­world 1937 aviation spectacu­lar, disappeared July 3 on the last leg, a 2,500-mile flight from New Guinea to a dot in the Pacific, Howland Island.

The first of the two new

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books is by Henri Keyzer­Andre, an 86-year-old pioneer pilot who knew Amelia person­ally. He. claims to have found out 20 years later, while work­ing in Japan, what happened: The Japanese executed her to steal her plane's technology. He kept that knowledge to himself until now.

Close, says Randall Brink. Brink's book, "Lost Star: The Search for Amelia Earhart," contends that Earhart was on a top secret reconna1ssance mis­sion to Dhotograph Japanese ·0ases in the Marshall Islands -"the Francis Garv Powers of c937" - 3.nd was~ alive in Chi­''a well after the end of World ~var H. Brink, too, is an estab­lished aviation expert who made a breakthrou.gh in 10 vears of researcn with new ~aterial obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Tom Crouch believes that Earhart, lost and out of fuel, rests somewhere on the ocean floor.

"That' s'been the problem," says Susan Ware. "Anytime you heard the name Amelia Earhart you thought only of her disappearance. The cult of the mystery caused everyone to lose sight of Amelia the person.

"I titled my book 'Still Miss­ing.' It offers nothing new about her last flight, but about the search for modern femin­ism. Her message during her very brief public career was to challenge women not to be held back by artificial barriers and all the rest. This woman who still looks so modern also talks so modem."

In the case of Lindbergh, mystery and suspicion over the guilt of Richard Hauptmann, the man executed for kidnap­ping his child, have also tended to shove aside anything new about the aviator's thoughts and accomplishments, though there is little left to say.

Biographers have a much easier time with Earhart; her husband, G.P. Putnam, an accomplished promoter, saw to that.

Further, "She came of age at the same time newsreels came of age," said Nancy Porter, who wrote, produced and directed the PBS film. "Back then they shot 10-to-1," she said, "shot 10 times more film than they used. So we saw film that had never been seen before and it showed her in a less canned way."

Maybe the Virginia professor was correct, too, about a cur­rent thirst for heroes.

"In the postwar world from the '50s to the '80s there were really no heroes or heroines," said Susan Ware, "no larger­than-life characters like Lind­bergh and Amelia. Heroes today tend to be from the sports world, and male. Femin­ism has produced some female leaders, but not heroines.

']'esterqears ~~~~~-~ 'Tuesday AfarCTt 22 1994 ~~ ~·~

via tor looks for remains of Frenchman's White ird

· By Chris Brock Thomson News Service

R ICHARD GILLESPIE of Oswego, N.Y. has

made a career of hopping around the globe in search of aviation mysteries.

And now, the man whose exneditions to the South Pacific wi'th The International Group for Historic .AJ.rcraft Recovery may have solved the mystery of Amelia Earhart is about to tackle another aviation -ouzzle.

in 1927. there was" fierce competiti~n to cavture the $25,000 prize that was awarded to the first person to fly non­stop from New York to Paris. On~May 8, World War I French flying aces Charles Nungesser and his co-pilot Francois Coli took off from France in their "liseau Blanc" ("The White Bird"). It had a 50-foot wings­pan and enough fuel for 40 hours of flight. Their intention was to land in New York Harbor.

The Frenchmen were spotted over England and Iceland, but from then on, their trip gets cloudy. Charles Lindbergh, who made the nearly 7,000-mile flight on May 20-21, said the pair vanished "like midnight ghosts."

But there are 17 reports of people in Newfoundland, Canada seeing a plane coming in from the sea and flying over the province. Gillepsie and his TIGHAR crew believe it crashed in a remote area of Newfoundland.

Gillepsie, a native of Fulton, N.Y., who is based in Wilming­ton, Del., said there is a public misconception that Lindbergh became famous because he was the first to fly non-stop over the Atlantic.

In fact, he was the 92nd. The flight contest was significant because it linked two major world cities.

There were reports that The White Bird may have vanished over Maine, but after a TIGH­AR expedition, the search was called off after finding no

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evidence. Gillepsie believes the Fren­

chmen crashed deep in the Avalon Peninsula in New­foundland, a remote area about 1,000 feet above sea level. The aircraft historian was i.n the area in December for prelimin­arv work.

'..'It's not pleasant. The wind blows all the time/' he said.

The target area of the search is a pond - itself is the center of folk tales and superstitions.

Wreckage of some kind of machine wreckage at the site was first spread. bv caribou hunters in the eariy -1930s. "It was inconceivable there would be machines back there," Gil­lepsie said. "It would literally have to have fallen out of the sky."

Over the vears, people have taken pieces of the wreckage home, Gillepsie said. "It is interesting. Every time some­one takes a piece of that wreck­age out, something bad happens."

The historian claimed that barns and factories have burned. "It's odd. It led to some superstitions in the area."

When the TIGHAR crew was at the site last year, they found a painted piece of metal. "It matches the color of the metal the object in the pond sup­posedly has," Gillepsie said.

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But, except for "the engine and cockpit, there wasn't much metal on The White Bird. It was constructed mainly of wood and fabric, which are biodegradable. But the cold water may have preserved the wreckage.

Gilleosie and his exoedition will journey to Newfo{indland in May.

Gillevsie and TIGHAR made headlines after exneditions to the South Pacific island of Nikumaroro in 1989 and 1991. Gillepsie and his search party found bits of metal. part of a womanR' s size 9 shoe and a medicine bott1e cap - evidence suggesting that this is where Earhart's ill-fated 1937 round­the-vv·orld flight ended.

If the Frenchmen had splashed down in New York, Gillepsie believes aviation his­tory would have changed. Lindbergh would not have flown the Atlantic, would not have pioneered the airline routes he later explored and would not have inspired a whole generation of American youth who designed, built and flew the machines that won World War II. ,

"These Frenchmen are the forgotten legend ingredient of the Lindbergh legend," Gillep­sie said.

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This photo owned by Salem resident Fred Birkhimer shows the Mullins seaplane outside the hanger at the Salem County Club during World War I. This ma11 be a robot bomber or its prototype, which was used as a training plane. It was powered~with two Ford automobile engines that t;techanics had "hopped up." Its maximum speed was 72 mph at a ceiling of 1,500 feet. Its crusmg range was 160 miles.

Researching story takes ots persistence of digging, In uch

By Larry Shields

D ICK WOOTIEN AND I had no idea where it

would go, but from the begin­ning we knew we had a good, if not unusual, story.

Wootten, Yesteryears writer and an editor here at the News, got the first tip from local his­torian Dale E. Shaffer.

Shaffer got his information from Salem resident Fred Birk­himer who had a simple black and white photo and a few sketchy shreds of information.

It was about an airplane, supposedly built in Salem dur­ing World War I.

If you've ever tried to track down something 20 or 30 years old you understand where the ~ord ske!chy ~omes fro~. But

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tor something around 76 years old you really put the brakes on.

Dick worked at it for weeks and one day, a couple of weeks ago, he walked over to my desk looking puzzled. He showed me a photograph.

It was a head-on shot of an early vintage biplane. It was twin-engined. Radiators were easily identifiable in front, but pusher propellors were faint outlines against the darkened backdrop of a hanger. Clearly visible though, were all the crisscrossing anchoring and suspension cables.

The plane had no undercar­riage. Instead its flat bottom, curved upward, sled-like in the front and rested on a small dol-

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ly somewhat larger than, say, a standard shipping pallet. The dollv rolled on four small, railroad-type wheels, along two tracks. A man stood alongside.

I asked Dick, "What is it?" He said he wasn't sure, just

that it was some kind of two­seat plane that was supposedly built in Salem by Mullins dur­ing World War I. About 1918.

He said Shaffer told him it had flown test flights at the Salem Country Club and was kept there - in a hanger. The word was, it was a seaplane. That's why it was out at the country club and on a dolly.

By this time, Dick had gone to the trouble of acquiring a

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Mullins' made boats, pickle signs, statues, sinks and seaplane

By Dale E. Shaffer

D URING ITS MANY years as a maior coroor­

ation" in Salem, the Mullins Manufacturing Co. :nade a great variety of different pro­ducts. When most or us think of this firm vve remember il as a vroducer of metal statues, boats, ;:anoes .. trailers. automo­tive Darts .. pickle signs, kitchen cabinets .. sin:Ks. household wares and military products. but did "rou :mow that iviullins made seaplanes C.uring \florid War 1 at the SJ.iem Countr/ ·Club?

Recenflv, I visited with Fred Birkhime~ and his wife, who live at 394 Country Club Lane. Fred is well-known in the area as a maker of miniature steam locomotives and for giving peo­ple train rides on holidays, but he also is a long-time history buff. His father, Floyd, was caretaker of the Salem Country Club for many years, and Fred (who was born in 1915) grew up at the lake.

He showed me an old photo, taken in the winter of 1917-18 during World War I, of a sea­plane standing in front of the Mullins hangar at the Country Club. Located where the flag­pole now stands, this hangar was used by Mullins to pro­duce seaplanes for the military. Workers came from Salem.

The operation was primarily one of assembly, with the engines and parts being shipped in. Mullins did not manufacture the parts (except perhaps a few). The two-seater

biplane with guy wires had a wooden frame and two motors. It was launched down a ftrack and into the iake near the main roadway and well. f, skilled c·ilot served as adviser for the opera ti on, and !:estcd each ~lane several times taking off to the r.onheast. is not dear how· the oiane was :;;turned 1rn tix: in-ciined track :-..,.... ~-:1e h"'nO-ar for re9airs. UJ c'1I'CC fh~':? ·oaSSC'Q jnal ic~spection,

miiitarv facilitv. The was ,;1en flown back to the Coumry

l·,follins 'Jroduced the sea­plane for -about two years. Thereafter1 the Country Club returned to its role of beinz a place of enjoyment for swim­mers, boaters, fishermen and the sports-minded.

Historically speaking, the site of the Salem Country Club was originally a farm owned by Isaac Crumrine, Harold Brian's grandfather. Brian and William H. Dunn purchased the farm in 1909 and made it into a private picnic ground.

They built a dam and diverted an excellent spring to create a large lake for swim­ming and boating. A shelter was built on the site of the pre­sent club house, and a few memberships were sold for $10 each.

The popular picnic ground continued under the ownership of Brian and Dunn until a group bought the property and incorporated it as the Salem Country Club in 1912.

The Germans during World War II developed a self-propelled V-1 buzz bomb with wooden wings that terrorized Great Bri­tain. Originally designed as a suicide plane complete with cockpit, it was later altered to be pilotless.

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map of the small lake at the country dub. He had it scaled to show at its longest point it ran approximately 440 yards on a slight curve.

If a seaplane was making test flights it would have to trace a path off the west bank, across the center of the lake and veer off in a northeasterly direction.

Shaffer relayed one other bit of information. He said the plane had crashed sometime in 1918. That was it. But as it turned out, it was plenty.

I suggested to Dick that he contact the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and see what they had. That seemed to satisfy him and he headed to the phone. .

For a long moment I won­dered. Not many things stump Dick. And, then I noticed, as if to add some emphasis, he left a photocopy of the plane on my desk.

I returned to what I was working on, but the damed picture of that plane kept jumping into view. Within the hour I was fishing through the News microfilm drawer: 1918.

If they tested the plane at the Salem Country Club, I figured it was during warm weather months. March seemed a good place to start.

I didn't get far - March 14, 1918 - when I ran across a page 3 story subheaded: ''NEW WAR SEAPLANES ... To Hunt Submarines." The story was off the leased wire service and didn't say anything about a plane in Salem, but I was suspi­cious about it being there at all; why would the editor run it?

Was it possible the editor felt the story had relative signifi­cance because he was aware of "seaplane" testing going on at the Salem Country Club?

The story described one type of seaplane and continued: "Still another type, a two­seated machine also is being manufactured. Construction details of these planes have never been published. It is known however, that the sea­planes are substantially similar to the British flying boats."

After rolling past April with nothing I hit this front page story on May 8: "A VIA TOR HURT IN LONG FALL AT COUNTRY CLUB."

That sure put a fix on our position.

The story read in part: Georg~ Stromer, pilot of the hydroplane which for some­time past has been making practice flights at the country dub, west of the city, was seri­ously injured in a 100-foot fall here shortly before noon Wed­nesday (Note: Wednesday was May 8). ·

The article said Stromer was diagnosed with a back sprain. "Details of the accident were difficult to ascertain, but it was

reported that the wings of the biplane had buckled."

I hollered to Dick. He read it and said, "Wow!"

Shaffer's information was good, but amazingly, after 76 years, the other details were accurate too - the country club, test flights, the crash, all were right on.

But now what? There were no follow-up stories on the crash or Stromer's condition. The same microfilm which rewarded us, now dosed us off. There had to be more in the old papers, but we couldn't find anything.

We settled on what we fig­ured would be a long shot and called the Salem Community Hospital PR department and asked if they could check their records for Stromer. We had the date and PR staffer Michel­le Donley got back the next day.

She had information, she said. Stromer didn't list a date of birth. His address was the Trotter Hotel, but it should have been the Metzgar Hotel as the Trotter was a nearby restaurant.

The information on Stromer's hospital record included: Occu­pation: Aviator. Nationality: Swedish. Marital status: Single. Diagnosis: Crushed 1st and 2d lumbar vertebrae. Discharged: July 24, 1918.

Donley was kind enough to provide the day count of his hospital stay: 77.

But more questions cropped up. If the plane was a local pro­ject, whose idea was it? What was it for? Where was it made? Was the plane an original design? Or a knock-off of another manufacturer? A rework of another model? Who made the engines? Was the guy in the photo Stromer?

Over the next few weeks we worked on it when we could. By this time Dick had been referred to the Smithsonian Institute by the U.S. Air Force Museum. He talked with a man named Dan Hagedorn. We called around. Dick sent out letters. We held brief bull ses­sions, tempering each other's speculation.

We checked locally. Oldtime airport owner, Kenny Koons, who has trained some 90 pilots, said, ''Never heard of it."

Eldon Elser, former owner of Elser's Airport on Sharrott Road near Boardman, said, "Couldn't recall anything like you describe in the photo."

What about the fins on the upper wing? Elser replied, "A lot of Curtiss planes had that. They had such long wings, they needed cables and bracing that ran out to the tip."

Was it a Curtiss? The Air Heritage, Inc.

museum and aircraft restora­tion facility at Beaver County Airport didn't know. what it

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This diagram shows the operation of the forced air system which controlled ailerons, keeP_ing the bomber in level flight. Timing gears caused elevators to level the plane off at a desired altitude. was. "Look's like a local inven­tor," Scott Royce of the airport said, after viewing a faxed copy of the photo.

Ruth Ann Hawkins, secretary at the Salem Country Club, suggested contacting George Fronk.

Fronk, an oldtimer pushing 90, said he once lived out by the country dub. Fronk had worked at the Mullins shop. "All the sudden there was a plane out there." He recalled it was experimental, a prototype bomber, based on an English­made De Havilland that was somehow connected to Mullins. He confirmed they built a hanger.

"They attempted to get it in the air, but there wasn't enough room and they busted it up," he said.

Fronk also recalled seeing parts for the plane under work benches around the assembly shop at Mullins.

"They were starting all kinds of things. It was a novelty. I saw it and remember it dis­tinctly," he said.

American Standard-Salem, which purchased the old Mul­lins (Youngstown Kitchens) firm, referred us to J. William Benson of Salem whose father held several Mullin's patents. "Sorry." But after giving it some thought, Benson paused and said he did see something in "my mind's eye."

John Shivers, Sr. worked at Mullins after World War IL "Can't recall anything like that," he said.

Well, Fronk did say it was "hush-hush."

Dick contacted Lindsley Dunn, curator at the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Ham­mondsport, New York.

Dunn knew of no subcon­tract Curtiss had with Mullins and said it sounded like an experimental plane. That was becoming a routine response from insiders. Local inventors caught up in flying and the war.

On March 10, Dick and I planted ourselves in the Mul­lins Room at Salem Historical Society Museum for over three hours. Dick found a Mullins

magazine called "The Story" published as a substitute for "The Mullins Press" for Sep­tember 1947. On page 51 was another photo of a plane. There it was, a three-quarter front view. On the nose of the cock­pit a _pennant was painted with the letters "H S."

But no accompanying story explained the plane, only the tantalizing caption above the photo: "This fantastic 'robot' bomber was actually made at the Mullins Salem plant during the first World War. Developed late, it was never used."

Robot? Bomber? Dick said, "Wow!" Dr. Carl Becker, professor

emeritus at Wright State Uni­versity, mainly a Civil War his­torian and researcher, was con­tacted. He couldn't help direct­ly, but he came back with two referrals. One was: Dan Hagedorn.

Dick had talked with him and now, more than ever, he looked like the real live-wire contact. Hagedron is head of the reference department for archives for the National Air and Space Museum, Smithso­nian Institute.

Dick wrote Dan Hagedorn, who is a pilot who learned to fly before he could drive. Hage­dorn is also a New Concord, Ohio native and would, because of that, have an added interest in our pursuit (New Concord is former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn's hometown). Dick supplied Hagedorn with information we secured from the Salem Histori­cal Society Museum.

Naval tests in 1918 estab­lished the plane's ability to drop bombs, then destroy itself. Its designer, Robert Modisette, was a vice presi­dent at the Mullins Manufac­turing Company. He dieti about 15 years ago, according to .his nephew, Tom Xeely.

On March 15, Hagedorn responded to Dick's inquiry saying our local research "pro­vided the due we needed to isolate details on the Modisette 'Hot Shot.' "

Ah-ha, the "H S." That was it. We were home. Hagedorn included a copy of

an article in the 1944 issue of "Flying" magazine detailing the aircraft (see story on Page 1).

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Photographs of people, places and events from the area that can be identified and have been taken from the 1800s through the mid-1950s will be considered for publication in "Yesteryears: A Pictorial History of Northern Columbiana County." The Salem News will publish this high quality, hard bound, 128-page book for distribution in early fall. The book will fea.,ture more than 300 photos reproduced on high-quality glossy 81/2"xll" pages.

You will be credited by name in the book for any photos we use. You can mail or drop off photos to the Salem News, 161 N. Lincoln Ave., Salem, Ohio 44460. Please include a sheet of paper on which you have written the name, address and daytime phone number of the person submitting the photo. Also include information about who or what is pictured and the approximate date of the photo. All submitted photos will be available for pickup after publication or returned with your stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Only 2,000 limited edition books will be published. Orders may be placed in advance with a $10 deposit for those who want to secure their copy. Order now with the coupon below and save $4 on each copy.

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Broadway and State Street, Salem, early 1900s

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