Flying High
FLYING HIGH OVERNMENT support has been given so gener ously to aviation that if the public fails to respond and become "air-minded" the fault can only be the public's. Glorious aviators...
...One does not believe that the future of air transportation will see any extraordinary expansion of aircraft manufacture...
...Newspapers have devoted columns of space to recording impressive flights, and private generosity has been lavish...
...We think the volume of air transportation will grow...
...One hundred thousand miles of scheduled service are being flown in the United States every twenty-four hours of the year, says the report...
...Failure of the nation to utilize this convenient and rapid method of travel would, in the long run, prove anomalous...
...The report on aeronautics submitted to President Hoover by Major Clarence M. Young, whose business it is to keep track of what is occurring overhead, seems a very interesting document...
...If the Major's predictions are verified, that three-fourths will become one during 1930...
...He will get himself killed in motor crashes with great alacrity, and it is rumored that he has grown fonder than ever of skis and speedboats...
...Quite as important has been the development of ways and means to disseminate meteorological information—radio broadcasting stations and automatic telegraph typewriting circuits...
...It is true that there has been a well-nigh calamitous slump, possibly a little more marked than the depression which has stalked after other industries...
...None of our other transportation systems could survive on the basis of passenger revenues alone unless they were strictly municipal and served crowds...
...and it will doubtless become apparent that the automobile, incomparable for short hauls, is a waste of time and an economic burden when used to travel long distances under steadily more complicated traffic conditions...
...When completed," says Major Young, "the system will contemplate 25,000 miles of lighted airways...
...But that, like so many other things, hinges upon the nature of the public response to an enterprise whose novelty and daring have been applauded but whose practical significance has not yet been realized...
...It may be that ultimate progress depends upon whether or not the plane can be used to transport light freight...
...In all probability the comparative balance for the year as a whole will be even worse...
...And if the commercial airways took on several thousand new planes a year, progress would be quite normal...
...That means just one passenger for every 244 miles flown—or, approximately, three-fourths of a passenger every time the pilot travels from New York to Boston...
...But the air...
...The sums involved are not excessive and the lighted airways system is of advantage from the point of view of national defense also...
...Much has been done to make the craft more dependable and the driving better...
...Here is not a vehicle which the average citizen can drive with much safety or pleasure...
...The government, it is reported, has spent $8,500,000 on airway construction throughout the country during the past year, which sum does not include the annual expenditure of $5,000,000 for up-keep...
...When the city goes to the country or the country to the fair, there is a rushing business in short hauls...
...And if the business of aeronautics does develop, it should prove able to furnish employment to many...
...Facts are stated with something like homely relish, and the dash of generous optimism added whets the appetite...
...But the total number of passengers who availed themselves of these routes— which stretch from New York to San Francisco, New York to Los Angeles, New York to San Diego—was only 150,000 during 1929...
...This federal assistance can be likened to the aids to shipping which the government, through the Department of Commerce, has fostered for more than one hundred years...
...In short, the achievement of the government is impressive and yet it may fairly claim to have operated economically...
...Nevertheless this business confronts one major difficulty...
...It is true enough that virtually everyone covets, nowadays, the thrill of hopping off with a sky pilot...
...Ours is a rapid transit civilization...
...FLYING HIGH OVERNMENT support has been given so generously to aviation that if the public fails to respond and become "air-minded" the fault can only be the public's...
...Glorious aviators have been welcomed effusively...
...Last year," the report declares, "approximately 6,000 planes were produced, of which about 650 were military, while reports for the first six months of 1930 show that 1,325 aircraft were manufactured for civil use and 359 for military purposes...
...First of all, there is the plane output...
...If in spite of everything John Henry still continues to prefer the homely earth, his lack of enthusiasm is really quite astonishing...
...But the present capacity of the manufacturing plants is about 7,000 planes a year, and the number of available skilled workmen is sufficient...
...But to all intents and purposes, the conservative citizen still goes about his business on the train—and not solely for reasons of economy either...
...Meanwhile industry has not abandoned hope in the future of aviation...
Vol. 12 • September 1930 • No. 19
