Alexander Loeb, eighteen-year-old aviator, whose fine was paid by two anonymous aviatrices just as he was about to begin a thirty day sentence on Welfare Island for landing his rebuilt plane on the sward of Riverside Drive, wants to fly to Palestine, he says.
Hardly out or the clutches of indignant police, who arrested him for landing in the city area because of a failing motor, Alexander is already agog with plans for a gascolator on his secondhand Curtiss-Wright Junior to stop further forced landings on inhospitable lawns, the accumulation of more hours in the air, and a trip to Palestine.
Loeb, who is short and dark, is only four and a half years in this country, coming from Rumania. He had been fooling around with gliders since he took an aviation course at Haaren High School. When he was fifteen Frank Hoffman, his instructor, took him to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and taught him to fly a plane. He has been flying for three years now, and obtained a license at sixteen, the minimum age.
BUYS PLANE FOR $500
He keeps his rebuilt plane in a hangar at Floyd Bennett Field. He bought it for $500 and rebuilt it with the help of a mechanically-inclined schoolmate. It lacks a gascolator, which is the reason the gasoline mixture in his engine brings him down once in a while in unexpected places. He is working on a gascolator now. After that he is going to wipe out the Charles Levine incident from the history of Jewish aviation.
“Flying is the most expensive sport there is,” he replied to a question as to why he couldn’t pay his $50 fine, rather than leave the plane in Riverside Drive, when he was booked for the Island.
“If anybody has any money to throw away,” he suggested, “he should get in touch with me. A flight to Palestine would even everything up. And it wouldn’t cost so much either. After a while I would be able to pay it all back. But of course the Curtiss Wright Junior wouldn’t do for such a flight.”
STUDIES AVIATION AT NIGHT
Alexander works for the Whitehouse Furniture Company by day and at night attends the course in Aeronautical Engineering at N.Y.U. The police were pretty kind to his plane after he was locked up. They guarded it on the Drive for three days and three nights. But they wouldn’t let him fly it off the Drive after he got back. His boss had to come with a truck and take it away piecemeal. Then it had to be reassembled again at Floyd Bennett Field. The plane keeps him broke all the time. As a matter of fact, he is afraid he will have to give up the course at N.Y.U. after this term.
Loeb lives with his mother at 230 West Ninety-ninth street. He was born in Colatele, Rumania, in 1916, on July 1. July 1 is the day he had to land on Riverside Drive, but he forgot it was his birthday during the excitement. The magistrate thought it was intentional because the Drive is close to his home. But Alexander contends he had to do it in order not to land in the Hudson and lose the plane.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
