Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1928, Page 103

Story of Aviation’s First 25 Yeafs Is One of Phenomenal Growth BY EDWARD P. WARNER, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aerc- nautics. ERSPECTIVE makes history. Columbus’ crew dominated by theght of their own perils and museries and the hope of wealth, had no idea of themselves as great discoverers. Nor did it occur to their cotemporaries to set up their con- tributions to the map as marking an“ outstanding event in human hist To live in the time of the Reformation | was to be intellectually perlexed, and | perhaps physically endangered. for the | Drevious two vears —the Army and Navy later could muster 18,000 pilots. holding of unpopular views. But neith- er leaders of thought nor common men could conceive of the revolution in the spiritual outlook of centuries yet un- born that was being wrought by Luther, Knox and Calvin. The transient waves that beat upon the beach impress themselves on every bystander, but the great geologic move- ments that form and reshape continents begin so imperceptibly that their mag- nitude and significance can be judged only after centuries or millenniums. So with the beginnings of the great basic tides in human affairs. Even 25 years is too short a lapse of time Across | which to regard them fairly, or to rate their true scope. It lacks just a few days now of be- ing 25 years since that memorable De- cember 17, when the aspiration to human flight, entertained and strug- gled -for through centuries, were 1eal- ized at the hands of two voung Ameri- cans. We are about to ceiebrate the anniversary of the day when those atient, shrewd, observant, painstaking rothers from Dayton saw their ma- chine, with one of them at the con- trols, lift into the air from the lonely wind-swept North Carolina beach where they had gone in search of favoring breezes for their experiments. | Even now it is far too ecarly to ap- | praise justly the place of that cvent | in history. It still grows in magni- | tude with the passage of time, but we have gathered enough perspective to make an attempt from which the eye- witnesses upon that December day early in the century were debarred. No engraved invitations were sent out for the first flight. Only a “few spectators were present, but some of them still live near Kitty Hawk, and one or two are still active members of the life-saving crew there, to which they were detached in 1903. Looking back across the span of_ years, they can summon up no refollection of marked emotional reaction. They were swept by no realization that the dream of Icarus was coming true before their eves and that they were privileged to be the first to gaze upon what no eye had ever beheld before. It takes time to assimilate an idea like that. « ale T takes so much time to overcome 8 nearly universal reluctance to novelty and to realize that something new is actually going on that not even after five years was the awplane fully accepted. Not only its practicai utility, but Fm very existence, was still being challenged. ‘The %flghts had been flying in an open. fleld just outside of Dayton thml;xh 8 considerable part of 1904 and 1905. Airplanes had been flown successfully and publicly in Europe during the two succeeding years. Yet in 1908, ‘when Wilbur and Orville Wright went back to Kitty Hawk, scene of their original triumph, for further experimentation, the reporters who furtively followed them there and hid in the brush to watch had their plain tales of “fact mercilessly blue penciled by editors who suspected them of drawing on their imaginations and recounting fantastic Impossibilities. Mark Sullivan’s exhaustive study of the cotemporary records has revealed an editor whose Immediate~zeaction to the story-of tHe flights of 1908 was to telegraph “his correspondent at the scene to “cut out the wildcat stuff.” After the passage of 20 years that gentleman is entitled to be written down in the record as among the great skeptics of history. ‘The grd of those early days and of the ibts of public and press is worth examining not only. for its his- torical interest, but because it may impel ‘us to humility in our judgments now. It is as dangerous as ever to set_arbitrary boundaries to progress or to human ingenuity, or to conclude that what is new is imposisble. Prof. Langley once remarked that every important invention or scientific development had to pass through threc stages—the first, in which the popular verdict was that the thing couldn’t possibly be done; the second, in Which it began to be said that perhaps it could be done, but even if it could it wouldn't be of any yse; the last, in which it was impatiently asserted that, of course, it could be done, and every- body had always known it. Prof. Lang- ley said that he himself had seen the airplane pass through all three. Orville Wright, who made the first flight, has watched the strengthening | of the third stage and its transition into a fourth, where the airplane is uni- versally accepted as a permanent util- ity, one of the things taken so much as a matter of course that we can| scarcely recall how we ever got along ‘without it. The airplane has fought its battle and won its place in the community, but we still must be watchful lest we estimate its development incorrectly or lant ourselves in the path of new sic discoveries, fortifying ourselves and opposing them with the stuborn conviction of impossibility. which the revious generation as a whole enter- ined toward human fiight in any| form. * k% ¥ KEPTICISM did not terminate with 1908. Driven reluctantly from its front-line trenches and compelled to admit that there was such a thing as an airplane, popular conscrvatism dug in on the tenet that it was only a scientific toy, tricky and dangerous and incapable of practical use. One need not be a veritable pioneer of aeronau- tics to recall the amused tolerance with which aircraft enthusiasts were regard- ed almost up to 1914. A new industrial art or a new form of transportation sometimes has to overcome that sort of opposition by steady and gradual progress, unmarked by sudden changes in public attitude. So, for example, did the automobile. First there were a hundred cars, then a thousand, ten thousand, a million. The rate of increase was phenomenally rapid, but fairly constant The airplane had started along the same road, but other factors intervened. A World War broke out and became the controlling element, determining both the amount and the nature of aero- nautical development. The war's influ- ence dominated directly, both in bel- Jigerent and in neutral countries, for four years. Indirectly it is strongly felt even up to'the present time. In July, 1914, the air forces of the American Army and Navy were almost * X X ¥ iT nautical development, too. Some of | them took years to manifest them- selves, but one needed only a few weeks when it became fully, finally and un- challengably evident that the airplane was to take a leading place among the | instrumentalities of war. That is clearer now than it was in 1915 or in 1918. It is an accepted fact, which shapes the national defense policies of the nations of the world. When rela- tions are strained between neighbor- | ing_states it is the fear of air attack, swift and terrible, that haunts the sleep | of premiers and war ministers. Recognition of the indispensability of the airplane as a scout and as an aux- iliary to naval and military forces and of its terrible potentialities as an inde- pendent weapon of attack would have come sooner or later in any case, but it was the war that tremendously accel- erated its coming. Military men, charged with great re- sponsibilities for national safety, are traditionally slow to espouse panaceas HE war had many effects on aero- | | Hostilities had no more than started | tion of those had done no flying for the | reposing only on theoretical arguments or on peace-time maneuvers. Until 1914 | the airplane fell in that class, and prog- ress was relatively slow, especially in the United States, even though it was | in this country that the first military airplane was acquired and put into se ice. In 1914 military air operations were submitted to the ordeal by fire and | emerged triumphant. 4 In 1913 the aggregate direct expendi- ture on American naval aviation was less than $50,000. In 1916 this had in- creased to $1,000,000. For the current fiscal year the figure is approximately $33,000,000. We have increased our expenditures thirtyfold in a dozen years, but the usefulness of the result has been augmented in an even larger proportion, and we are getting more for our money now than ever before, with 600 qualified pilots in the naval service and with up-to-date planes of many types for them to use. During the current year alone 300 | planes will be purchased and naval machines will cover —some 20,000,000 miles. In the period of intensive opera- tions between July 1 and October 1 of last Summer the service planes did an amount of flying equivalent to circum- navigating the earth two and a half times each day. The completion of the program authorized by Congress will bring naval aviation by 1932 into a proper relation with the remainder of the Navy. ‘The air forces of other countries are embarked upon similar programs of balancing and development, and in each case the air arm is steadily in- creasing its relative weight in the general scheme of national defense. * oK ok X ‘HE growing place of aircraft in‘ military operations is due in part to the steady improvement in airplane performance—but only in part. Much is due also to the development of ac- cessories, making new fields of em- ployment possible, and to the innumer- able ideas for further use of aircraft which have proceeded from ingenious minds in and out of the service and have been given the acid test for ap- proval or rejection by trial in war or in recent years in maneuvers simulating war conditions. The progress of military and com- mercial aviation has been affected by the evolution 'of auxiliary equipment “THE AIRPLANE HAS From painting by John MacGilchrist. Commercial Progress of the World. FOUGHT ITS BATTLES sed through courtesy of Robert. AND WON ITS son & Deschamps Galleries, PLACE I]:’;( ;I'HE COMMUNITY'S EVERYDAY LIFE” of operation as well as by improvements in the airplane itself. Air transport could be foreseen readily enough, but and the introduction of new methods aerial photographic surveying, aerial dusting to fight the boll weevil and| the airplane are now intrenched in a aerfal forest fire patrols hardly fell |dozen fields, dependent upon qualities within the scope of imagination in the |quite different from the mere ability to ploneer days. The economic services of |go from one place to another at speed beyond the capacity vehicle known. The idea of transportation by air was quick to catch the public faney. of any other Aspir;.tion to Human Flight, Struggled For Through Centuries, Wag Rsalized by Two Young Americans Just 25 Years Ago. Since Then Man’s Conquest of the Air Has Set Fast Phofl, fia Is Today an Important Factor in the Through the days of the pony express, | through the years when village boys vent down to the station to watch the “limited” sweep through with a shower of sparks, through songs of “Rolling Down to Rio on Great Steamers, White and Gold,” improvements in transport | have had a particularly romantic lure. | As early as 1910 there had been an ex- | periment with air mail covering a few | miles on Long Island, and having oniv a sentimental interest. Within a couple | of years thercafter Zeppelins wer> carrying passengers in Germany on a| regular intercity schedule. But prior to 1914 it all amounted to little. The nature of the relationship be- tween the war and commercial aviation has been the subject of much dispute. Undoubtedly the war experience dis- seminated ideas that steered the ascent of commercial ayiation in 1919 on courses distorted and undesirable in | some respects. On the other side of the balance, how- ever, is the enormous amount of re- search done at Government expense for milits reasons, much of it equally ap- plicable to commercial eraft and their operation. Then thers was the high | quality training given to a great num- ber of pilots who, upon demobilization, became available for cemmercial aero- nautical pursuits, and the manufacture of a vast amount of equipment, esp>- cially engines, completed too late to be put into service during the war and sold for commercial use thereafter at a | ridiculous fraction of the actual cost of manufacture, so furnishing an in- direct subsidy to the airplane builder through his years of trial. ‘Taking the case as a whole, there can be no doubt that military and naval air activities, both during the war and in the years of peace that have followed, have contributed enormously to smooth- ing the path of commercial flying. * K K % N commercial air transport, as in put- ting the alrplane to work for the military and naval arms, we in Amer- ica made the first experiments and then displayed great caution in fol- lowing them up. Even before the arm- istice the Postoffice Department start- ed the first regular air mail service, connecting New York and Washington, but it was some years before any fur- ther important step was taken. In the meantime European countries created and steadily expanded a net- work of passenger air lines, operating most of them with planes especially de- signed for passenger service. American air transport has been the beneficiary of four successive impulses since the Post Office Department began the great experiment of putting the air- plane in the service of the letter writer. Regular night flying was introduced through the efforts of Col. Paul Hen- derson, then Second Assistant Post- master General, in 1924. The Kelly bill, authorizing the award of air mail con- tracts to private corporations and pav- ing the way for taking the Government out of the business, became law in 1925. ‘The air commerce bill, introduced by Senator Bingham, to give detailed effect to certain of the recommendations of the Morrow Aircraft Board, of which he was a member, was passed in 1926 and made possible the notable work of | the Department of Commerce under | Herbert Hoover and Assistant Secre- | tary MacCracken in stimulating the opening of new air routes and air navi- | gation facilities. Col. Charles A. Lind- bergh flew to Paris in 1927 and made| & the whole Nation devotedly air minded. The collective effect of these vitaliz- ing events is too well known to need more than the merest recapitulation. Nine years ago there was in America a BY LIEUT. LESTER J. MAITLAND, Hero of the Army Flight to Hawail. LYING is no longer an art, hut a_ business, even as riding in a plane is no longer a thrill, but an acgepted and orthodox method of transportation. As a matter of fact, aviation today is not only a business, but one which in surprisingly short time has taken its place in the big business class. Signs point to an aircraft industry as strong as that now engaged in the manufac- ture of automobiles, employing hun- dreds of thousands of workers and oc- cupying an important place in the na- tional economic structure. The fly-by-night airplane builder, the fiy-by-night airways operator and the fly-by-night pilot are rapidly vanishing down the road that leads to obscurity. Their places are being taken by men with great financial resources and ex- tensive business experience. These men have set themselves to the task of con- solidating the airplane industry into multi-million-dollar corporations: they have brought traffic and transportation genius into the operating end; they se- lect their pilots with the care that cap- tains of ocean liners are assigned to their berths. Some of the romance may have passed out of aviation and some of the glamour mav have died, but this loss is amply offset by the elimination of irresponsible operators, quack pilots and poorly main- tained equipment. After all, perform- ance counts, and the airplane, like any other means of communication and transportation, must make good on its own merits. It is obvious that it has already done so. There are today some twoscore aerial transport companies in this country, averaging about 31,000 miles a day, Winter and Summer, rain or shine. Outstanding among these companies are the several corporations which, through consolidations of vari- (ous kinds or through the extension of | their operation territory, point the way to development of the huge merchant air fleet which before many years will be the proud possession of this country. | Great trunk lines of the air are coming into existence, and over them passen- gers, mail and freight will be carried to distant points with speed and in safety. It is impossible to predict the full ! scope of the benefits which full-fledged development of air transportation would bring to the people of America. There are many prophets in the field of aviation, and the better their imag- ination the more apt they are to be accurate. It is impossible to define the scope of future aviation. So far as the henefits to be derived from the transportation end are concernad, the best gauge is found in the expansion too small for mention, their aggregate | and prosperity that followed in the equipment a couple of dozen airplanes. | wake of railroad development. Great Britain, France and Germany to- * R %S gether could mobilize some 600 ma- | y “hines at that date. when the airplane | [T_Was the building of the Union alrcady had been available for more |~ Pacific which opened up the treas- fhan 10 vears. The world's aggregate |ure chest of the West, and it is per- production of airplanes for the previous | fectly reasonable to assume that simi- year had probably totaled 600 or 700. | lar Tesults may be expected in_the In America there were about 270 |huge undeveloped sections into which Jicensed pilots, but many of them were | railroads have not been able to pene- inactive and possessed only very lim- | trate, but to which airplanes have easy ited qualifications. admission. Sight must not be lost of Fifty-two months later the principal | the fact that neither mountain nor powers engaged in the war had some- | forest, swamp nor desert are serious thing like 60,000 machines in_ service, | handicaps to_ aviation. The airplane despite the enormous losses of equip- | soars over these obstacles ®ith the Ment ineviteble under war conditions. | same ease with which it skims over The number of airplanes built during | the flatlands of the corn belt. the *year immediately preceding the | About 50 years of constant attention armistice was approximately 120,000, | and gainstaking industry have gone ahout 14,000 of them being produced in | into the development of the railroad; the United States. Nearly 2,000 planes | about 50 months have gone by since were built in this country during the |the air transportation movement got month of October, 1918. Where there | under way in earnest. While it can- to do, the record shows that aerial transportation is surging forward at a speed as rapid as that of the airplane itself. There are several good and suf- ficient reasons for this sudden expan- sion, but only three are of any real magnitude. The first reason is that, unlike the railroads, air transportation lines need not acquire or build expensive track | systems. The second reason is that progress in aerial transportation was to be expected as soon as airplane reached a certain point of stability and comfort and as soon as the reliability of engines had passgd beyond question or_conjecture. The third reason is that public sup- port of aviation, which had been rather retarded in this country, came in a swift and overwhelming rush once it got started. Airports—without which there can be no airways—were built by hundreds of municipalities; passen- gers and cargo—without which there can be no transportation business—be- gan to furnish pay loads. began to turn and they have been gain- ing momentum ever since. It can no longer be said that America tralls Europe in the air. On the contrary, there is ample proof that we are forg- ing ahead in the friendly race among nations that are working for aerial advancement. The strongest approval of the airplane as a transportation medium is its in- dorsement of railroads. The very fact that airplanes are being linked with trains to speed up transcontinentol travel is a stamp of approval entitled to serious recognition. Persons interested in aviation have long and loudly main- tained that the airplane is a safe means of transportation. The only trouble was that their enthusiastic assertions were taken with a grain of salt. The public was inclined to discount their claims because it believed them to be flavored with an overseasoning of en- thusiasm. . * koK x \ BUT when the railroads, accustomed to stop, ook and listen before adopt- | ing any new policy, and with “Safety First” always their motto, paved thel way for the definite entry of aircraft into the transportation world, the pub- lic at large had tangible evidence v.hat‘ Vi t " Al oS O inolined | and Pullman fares. Persons who make | this journey will leave New York in | the evening by way of the Pennsylvania | Railroad, arrive at Columbus, Ohio, the ! next morning: fly from Columbus to | Dodge City, arriving there at night: go by train from Dodge City to Las Vegas, tand the next morning board a plane | which will land on the Pacific Coast | that night. ‘This sounds perfectly simple, und from the passenger’s standpoint it is. i But back of this simplicity is a compli- ) cated maze of machinery which it has taken mony and months, minds and men to assemble. Questions of equip- a matter of “luck,” as many were inclined to believe. This pioneer work in air-rail travel is being carried on by the Trans-Con- tinental Air Transportation Co. in con- junction with the Pennsylvania Rail- road. Col. Charles A. Lindbergh is chairman of the technical committee of the corporation. He serves also as con- sultingaeronautical _engineer to the Pennsylvania Railroad, Among its offi- company has a group of men of out- standing eminence in the aeronautical industry, as well as in the world of finance. ‘The company is capitalized at 10,000,000, than $2,000,000 will have been expended before the company’s first pay-load plane leaves the ground. Next Spring will see the inauguration of the first schedule of coast-to-coast air-rail travel. The trip will take from had been less than €00 licensed aviators | not be claimed that aerial transporta- in the United States as Jate as Janu- tion has accomplish in 50 months ary, 1917—and a considerable groper- what it tock the ds 50, years 48 to 51 hours—just half of the time consumed by train—and will cost only cers and on its board of directors Lhe] In short, the wheels of aerial progress | DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN TRANSPORTATION. of which $5000,000 has: ment had to be solved. The best avail- been pald in. It is expected that“more | able motors were obtained, as were the | best available planes. But those planes. to serve their full purpose, had to be made as comfortable as Pullman cars for the convenience of passengers, Who will spend nearly 1,700 miles of the 2,700-mile frip in the air. | ”"The two flight stages in the present program will include several 15-minute is not known as yet, but landings will beemade at 250-mile intervals for re-| fueling and inspection, as well as to give passengers an opportunity to stretch their legs. In addition to these regular airports there will be emergency anding fields every 25 miles along the air routes. Friends of aviation are waiting with keen interest to see how this first ex- periment in air-train travel will work out in practice. They are confident that, from an operating standpsint, it will 'be a huge success. They know that the airplane will do its stuff. It has been demonstrated time and again that aircraft can be run on rigid schedules. For instance, records show that all air mail last year was from 90 to 99 per cent on schedule time. Thoy also show that the delays were in sections of the country where bad flying weather prevails, * ¥ kX IN that the air-train travel system as | | | i Twenty-Five Years of Aviation Sees Dawn of a New Era in Transportation. Destined to Outstrip Rapi& Progress‘of the Railroad. air schedule the territory between New York and Columbus, which is known among pilots as the worst flying coun: try in America. If one drew a storm map of the northern part of the West- ern Hemisphere he would find that nearly all the storm centers merge over the northern half of the Alle- ghenies. Through bitter experience pilots have learned that there is always some sort of a storm merger going on in that section. This flight is eliminated by the rail trip between New York and Columbus. Of course, it is perfectly safe to predict that the day will arrive when bad weather—yes, even fog—will mean as little in air transport flying as it does in railroad or steamship opera- tion today. But uhtil that time comes we must recognize the handicaps con- fronting us. The plan outlined for air-mail travel next Spring may be considered the first of four stages of transcontinental travel which eventually will be at- tained. This first stage calls for air travel only in the daytime. The next age probably will include both day and night air travel, with part of the trip by rail. - The third stage will be all air, day and night travel from coast to coast, with three or four stops. The fourth stage will be non-stop air expresses that take off on one side of the Continent and land on the| other, completing the trip in from 18 to 20 hours. » I feel perfectly free in predicting that before long the transcontinental air journey will not be an adventure, but & time-saving relaxation. The ransfer from train to plane, or vice will cause no_ inconvenience whatever. ‘The air-rail stations will not be located in cities, but just out- side of them. The passenger will step off the train, walk less than 100 yards to a plane standing ready on the line, take his seat and be off. Some per- sons may wonder if they will be able to stand the journey by plane. My answer is, yes. Air-sickness, with weil | ventilated, well stabilized planes, should | be less common than train sickness. The planes, to be put into service will have either’ two or three motors. Each will be manned by two pilots, carry a steward and will be in con- stant radio communication with the ground. In case of mishap the ship will be able to fly on one or two mo- tors as easily as it does on two or three. Should a forced landing be nec ry, the emergency fields will be available for use. It has been demonstrated in transport operation during the last few years that accidents are very few and that the planes go through on time. Moreover, transport pilots know the ground over which they fly, not only from the air, but from the ground as well. Take, for instance, the development of the West- ern Air Express. Thirty days before it began operations its entire flying force | was taken by truck over the 600-mile 'route covered by the company’s schedule. The pilots studied the territory as field officers would study the terrain of a battlefield. They learned from first hand observation the location and peculiarities of the various emergency fields. In other words, not a single phase of preparation was left out, and repa [ this connection 1t is worth noting !fi AafAtEl o RN WA ying. T"Belfpve that the co-ordination of twice as much s the regular railroad stops. Just where they will be located !now outlined has eliminated from its air and rail travel will prove a great American Transportation Takes to the Air advantage to aviation. For one thing, this welding of two great transportation mediums will bring to aviation the ad- vantages that lie in expert study and development of traffic methods. Of great importance also is the psychological ef- feet this union will have upon the public. From the standpoint of the railroads it is undoubtedly a wise move, as it | probably will tend to elminate the con- flict and competition which a separate ir transportation development would be certain to produce. Air travel of the present is still in its infancy, but air | travel of the future is bound to have some of the influence upon the railroad that the railroad had two generations | ago upon the covered wagon. Air travel | of tomorrow will not only be faster, but | also as sure as that of travel by sea, rail or automobile. Transport planes today fly at speeds ranging from 125 to 150 miles an hour. Those of tomorrow | will sweep through space at 250 miles an hour and more. No train, no| steamer, no automobile—for that mat- ter, no dirigible—will ever be able to keep pace with the airplane. Transport aviation has only started to seratch the surface. Before long there will be flying Pullmans that offer every possible luxury and comfort. Ex- periments are now being carried on with a “sleeping plane,” which, when completed, will be a long step forward in travel comfort. This ship will have none of the jerky motion of a train and, with muffied motors and sound- proof walls, its cabin will be as silent as a stateroom aboard a liner. ‘The big mergers of the railroad world came into being some years ago; the big combines of aviation are now tracing their lines on the map. These companies are the T. A. T. already referred to; the Fokker-Western Air Express combination; the Boeing- Pratt-Whitney merger and the Key- stone, Loening, Wright consolidation. It is believed that these combinations will eventually absorb most of the | smaller companies now in existence. ‘With the expansion of aerial trans- portation will come similar expansion of other aerial activity, such as mail. express and light freight. The air mail today covers routes aggregating nearly 12.000 miles, and averages from 6,000 to 7,000 pounds daily. To be sure, this is only a small portion of the 900,000 pounds of first-class mail being handled day in and day out by the Post Office Department, but persons who have studied the air mail and its growth are inclined to believe that before long planes capable of carrying loads of 5,000 pounds will join the air mail family and thus speed up the delivery of the Nation's mail to a heretofore undreamed-of extent. Hand in hand with the expansion of commercial aviation will go the expan- sion of private flying by individual plane owners. As the production of airplanes iincreases the price of aircraft will de- ! crease. It should be a question of only |a few years before a good plane will cost no more than a good car does now. This would mean that persons who have learned to fly or those who can afford to maintain private pilots will use air- planes for pleasure or business trips. I have not made an extensive study of the development of this phase of aviation, but I know that even today a great number of planes—and some of them quite expensive—are being pur- ! chased for private use. Last year about 2,000 planes were built in this country. It is estimated that 3,500 will have been built this year and that next year will see a production of between 5,000 and 6.000. An interesting development Is taking place in connection with private flying. and that is the formation of aviation country clubs near our large cities. single air line, barely 200 miles in length and carrying only mail and using slightly modified military airplanes. To- day our commercial aircraft fly 43,400 miles each day on regular schedules | with mail, express and passengers; 16.- 300 miles of routes are scrved, 6.300 of them lighted for night fiying—and ex= pansion goes on apace. European countries have worked on different lines, but all of the great powers have pro- gressed notably in the commercial field. Certain features are of vital interest both in commercial and military flying, and outstanding among them is the safety of flight. Assurance of a high degree of safety is obviously a pre- ln-qmsne to the planning of passenger ines. The officers and men of the service would cheerfully assume any necessary risks and reflect. as they have in the past. that “the air service is always at war.” It goes without saying, how- ever, that no effort must be—and none is—spared to reduce the risks to a minimum. The experience of the Navy again will serve as an apt illustration of what has been accomplished. In 1921 the service had a fatal accident for every 2,200 hours flown. There has been steady improvement until last year the corresponding figure reached 7,200 hours, and for the first four and a half months of the present fiscal year, which started July 1, the record has been ap- proximately 8,000 hours for each fatal accident. This is believed to be a record which has never been beaten, if, indeed, it has ever been approached. by any non-American military or naval air service. R 'O recount what has been done is easy. To forecast is.not so simple. Yet there are certain points that stand out as almost assured. It is assured. in general terms, that prog- ress will continue. The performance of aigplanes will improve. They will e more economical. more rugged. more reliable, safer. The pres- ent range of their usefulness is dimly suggested by the extraordinary variety of the topics listed for consideration by the international civil aeronautics conference during the coming week. There will be still further diversifica- tion ahead. Under the specific head of military operations we may anticipate that the place of the airplane will grow still more important and that the propor- tion of total appropriations for na- tional defense which is directly or Indi- rectly allocated to aviation will con- tinue to Increase. The airplane to some extent will replace other instru- ments of war, and will be developed at _their expense. Especially may we safely anticipate that the airplane will become increas- ingly the dominant factor in coast de- fense, and that airplanes based at coastal stations will fly long distances over the water to co-operate with fleets and the aircraft based on them. The proportion of naval vessels carrying aircraft and depending on the airplane and its bomb as their principal striking force, rather than on the gun and its projectile, will increase. Commercial aviation has a vast fleld~ to exploit within the Continental United States. We shall run far afield on a false scent if we devote ourselves to the promotion of transatlantic air travel at the expense of simpler and more urgently needed development at home. Transoceanic commercial serv- ice is important, but for the airplane it is far away, despite the success of a number of transatlantic flights car- ried out under selected conditions and with specially prepared equipment and little or no commercial load. There are 16.300 miles of air routes operated in the United States now. ‘That figure can be multiplied by 5 or 10 and the traffic increased a hundredfold or more. It imposes no undue strain upon the ation to foresee the ransport By of all first-class mail between great cities 200 miles or more apart. and passenger business has pos- sibilities as yet hardly touched. The commercial operator of airplanes is far from having reached the point where he will have to weep with Alexander for the lack of fresh worlds to conquer. So_far the omens are plain and legi- ble, but they are only for the imme- diate future. We have seen what won- ders 25 years of flight have brought forth. Few will be 5o bold as to don the prophet’s mantle and attempt to look ahead for another 25 years, or to guess how much there will be to celebrate at an international gathering marking the semi-centennial in De- cember, 1953. Mussel Industry. THE gathering of mussels forms an important industry in the Mid- dle West. The mussel fisherman's outfit consists of a boat and a pair of dredges. A dredge is composed of ordinary gas pipe whereto a number of hooks are attached, each hook showing four prongs. Fastening a stout rope to his dredge, the hunter drops it overboard and, as the boat drifts with the current, the dredge drags along the bottom of the stream. The mussel lies with shell open and when the prong of a hook strikes within the opening of the mussel's two shells, the deluded mollusk, under the impression that it has captured some- thing edible. closes down on the hook with a viselike grip. After floating 20 or 30 yards the dredge is pulled up and the remaining dredge is dropped from the opposite side of the boat. It is not unusual for a fisherman to capture as many as 100 mussels at a single drop of the dredge. When the fisherman has as ma mussels as his boat will conveniently carry he rows ashore and undertakes the “cooking out” process. The mussels are transferred from the boat to the tank that holds from 500 to 1,000 pounds. Here the mussels are boiled for one hour, a process that loosens the meat from the shell. The shells are placed upon a platform, where they are sorted and cleaned for shipment. The price paid for the shells in ton lots fre- quently touched the $15 mark. ‘While the shells form the principal product of mussels. the fisherman not infrequently has the luck of finding a valuable pearl in his catch. A pearl to be of first quality must be of good luster and of a round, button or pear shape. If they are irregular in form, but have brilliant color, they have some value. An irregularly shaped pearl is called a baroque. A pearl to be of any great value should be not less than one-eighth of an inch in diameter, and in color should be white, pink, purple, brown or black. Frequently, the mussel fisherman finds pearls of perfect shape, but of & dull lead color. These are worthless and are known as “dead pearls.” Another product of the mussel deserv- ing mention is the “slug.” The siug is always irregular in form and is com- d of the same matter that goes to make up the pearl, although it does not Ppossess sufficient_brilliance to be classed as a barog Slugs are employed in the manufacture of cheap jewelry. and the price for them ranges from $1 to sxgo Ill; o';.lance. earls, baroques and slugs are tnought to be formed by the mussel as a means of protection against irritation. A for- elgn substance, such as a grain of grain, fiinds an entrance between the shells. This irritates the mussel, and to protect itself it envelops the offending object in a coat of nacre of varying thickness. An Untimely Death. ‘There was a young fellow named H: Who fell in the spring in the fall; ue. . i 'Twould have been a sad If he'd died in the spring. But he didn't, he died in the fall. —_—e T Quite Right. Customer—How are your tongue sand- wiches? ‘Waiter—Well, sir, th themselves. g