This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Tip-Top, the biggest photoplay production corporation in the world, is still planning to add a news-reel to its releases, and they intended to buy up one of the existing independents. They were almost ready to buy, and their choice had narrowed down to either the Compass outfit or the World News. The reel they bought and gave their name would become the biggest in the world; the others would simply pass out. Compass was hell-bent on landing that deal.

This time Nick is sent out to cover a balloon race in western Pennsylvania that’s back on. Thanks to a bad engine in the Compass plane, Nick and Jim manage to get superior shots of the balloons launching—but when the Compass plane goes down in the wilds of Pennsylvania on the way home, Nick has to stop and aid the stricken crew, putting his own plane in danger!

From the July 1928 Wings, it’s Nick Royce in Frederick C. Davis’ “Flying Fire!”

It was his job! But when the fallen eagles called, Nick Royce, flyer, placed the unwritten law of the air above the demands of reel rivalry!

• Download “Flying Fire” (July 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Tip-Top, the biggest photoplay production corporation in the world, is still planning to add a news-reel to its releases, and they intended to buy up one of the existing independents. They were almost ready to buy, and their choice had narrowed down to either the Compass outfit or the World News. The reel they bought and gave their name would become the biggest in the world; the others would simply pass out. Compass was hell-bent on landing that deal.

Gordon Dugan, editor-in-chief of the weekly World News Reel, and his staff were working night and day to land the lucrative deal. Lately the Compass outfit, their keenest and deadliest competitors, had scooped them so often that Dugan was driven to desperation and wouldn’t let anything like sentiment stand between him and success.

From the June 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Twin Flyers!”

They broke him—made him an outcast in the game he loved best. But he wasn’t through—and in the mile-high contest for a scoop, Nick Royce came back!

• Download “Twin Flyers” (June 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

World News Reels and Compass are once again racing against time and each other to get footage of a dam bursting. World News Reels’ Nick Royce has a fire under him—if they get the pictures back first, there’s a raise in it for everyone—one that would allow Nick to marry his sweetheart, but Compass is up to their usual underhanded tricks! From the May 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Half-Way to Heaven!”

“The shots are there. Get ‘em!”—That was all he said—but it sent Nick Royce, kid flyer of the news-reel, lumbering into the mile-high clouds to face the rage of the elements and the treachery of a rival.

• Download “Half-Way to Heaven” (May 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Tip Top, one of the biggest producers in the movie field, is looking to add a news reel to their releases and want to buy up one of the present independent movie reel producers and it’s down to Compass and World News Reel. Which ever company can out perform the other and provide the best news reels will get the gig—only problem is, someone’s on the payroll of Compass at World News Reel and causing trouble. From the April 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Winner Take All!”

Two flyers of the newsreel wage an air-feud in the clouds, and over the flame-belching tanks of the oil fields Nick Royce, sky-eater, plays his ace-in-the-hole.

• Download “Winner Take All” (April 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Hollywood comes calling at the World News Reel field when J. Harold Shaw and director arrive hoping the World News Reel pilots and cameramen can help them capture a dramatic stunt for the climax of their latest feature. Who’s j. Harold Shaw? Well, his pictures send thrills and chills up and down the prickley spines of a million girls. Right at that minute his likenesses were decorating the dresser-tops of adoring females from coast to coast. Many a dissatisfied wife thought of him as an ideal husband for herself. His face was certainly his fortune. Yes, sir, right then there wasn’t any more heroic hero in the whole flicker business than J. Harold. Needless to say, Nick took an instant dislike to Shaw—especially when he started to put the moves on his gal! From the February 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Hero Stuff!”

Between earth and sky he hung, helpless in the useless parachute—until Nick Royce, sky-eater, jumped into space, a grim smile on his lips as he prayed for an even break!

• Download “Hero Stuff” (February 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931. Here, in his first story, Nick is mistaken for a world famous stunt flyer while trying to wrangle a job with the World News Newsreel service. And although he doesn’t make a good first impression he does come up with the goods in the end! From the January 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Grinding’ High!”

A blazing steamer—a roaring furnace amid a vast expanse of desolate sea—and Nick Royce, fledgling, zoomed for the greatest scoop of all to prove himself a birdman!

• Download “Grindin’ High” (January 1928, Wings)

This week’s story features that crack pilot for Tip-Top World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931. Here, Nick and his crew are to shoot footage of the new American Flyer plane and get them on the screens before the other news services. But a disgruntled former designer has other plans that include dynamite! from the December 1929 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Mile-High Explosives!”

Dynamite on the sky track! It’s tough and fast, the newsreel game, and Nick Royce is the toughest and fastest pilot that ever flew cloud-high camera shots from the danger spot marked X.

• Download “Mile-High Explosives” (December 1929, Wings)

As a bonus, here’s a “thumbnail sketch” of Frederick C. Davis from The M-P News Flash in the the August 1935 issue of Sky Birds.

Meet Frederick C. Davis

IN THE first of a series of thumbnail sketches of well-known authors, we present Frederick C. Davis who writes the “Moon Man” stories in TEN DETECTIVE ACES, the “Duke Buckland” yarns in WESTERN TRAILS, and the new “Mark Hazzard” series in SECRET AGENT “X”.

Many of our readers will be surprised to learn that Fred is only 33 years old. He is married to a charming girl, and has a sweetheart of a daughter. Fred’s home town is St. Joseph, Mo., made famous by Jesse James. He works in New York City, and has a summer home in Connecticut.

Fred started at rock bottom in tho writing game, and knows what it is to have to budget one’s self on 50¢ a day for three meals and $2.00 a week for a room. However, this is but a memory of the past now; for today he has an up-to-the-minute office, a secretary, and two electric typewriters.

It all rested on winning the Air Derby for Ned Knight and Alton Airlines whose plane he was piloting. Alton hoped to dispel the bad rumors swirling around their planes and secure lucrative business deals at various airports; and Ned, he hoped to win the $5,000 purse so he could get a nice place and some furniture and ask his girl to marry him. Only problem is, their biggest competition, Stormbird, will do whatever it takes to win—whatever it takes. From the August 1928 issue of Air Stories it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Plane Jane!”

“When you fly tomorrow—you fly to win!”—Ned Knight, pilot of the racing plane, climbed into the cockpit with those words ringing in his ears—but when the finish line neared, his hand faltered, and his ears shut out everything save the roar of another motor, beckoning him to destruction.

• Download “Plane Jane” (August 1928, Air Stories)

Lieutenant William Ballentine—a big name for such a small pilot. He looked like a ten-year-old dressed up in his big brother’s flying togs, he was so small. As a matter of fact, he was just a half-portion of pilot. But what he lacked in size he seemed to make up in joie de vivre. But when the C.O. told him to follow orders and “Ask No Questions”—unfortunately, he did just that.

Too much courage was Half-Pint’s burden—then came the day when he softened the C.O.’s anger and showed that even feathers have wartime uses.

• Download “Ask No Questions” (December 1931, War Birds)

WHILE browsing through eBay a couple months ago, I came upon these two snapshots from a family’s Christmas in Memphis 1931. What caught my eye was the little boy all dressed up as a WWI ace with leather jacket, aviator’s cap with goggles, and some sort of tall leather boots(?)! It got me thinking about what stories that boy could have been reading that rather mild, snowless December in Memphis.

So this month we’ll be featuring stories published in the December 1931 issues of Aces, Sky Birds, War Aces and War Birds, by some of our favorite authors—Arch Whitehouse, O.B. Myers, Frederick C. Painton, Frederick C. Davis, Donald E. Keyhoe, and George Bruce—as well as a couple new or seldom seen authors to our site—Elliot W. Chess, Edgar L. Cooper, and Robert Sidney Bowen.

Looking at that impressive list, you may be wondering where a few of our most often posted authors are. Authors like Ralph Oppenheim, Harold F. Cruickshank, Lester Dent and Joe Archibald. That’s a bit of good news/bad news. The good news, we’ve already posted the stories Ralph Oppenheim (“Lazy Wings”) and Lester Dent (“Bat Trap”) had in the December 1931 War Aces; the bad, I don’t have the December 1931 issues of Wings featuring George Bruce, F.E. Rechnitzer and Edwin C. Parsons or Flying Aces with Keyhoe, Archibald, George Fielding Eliot, Alexis Rossoff, and William E. Poindexter. And as for Cruickshank—he didn’t have a story in any of the air pulps that month.

With that in mind—and since it’s Monday, let’s get the ball rolling with the covers of Christmas 1931!

Come back on Wednesdays and Fridays this month for some of the great fiction from these issues!