Just as the railway accumulated air-brakes, automatic signals, etc., so is the aeroplane being improved with safety devices. Landing places are included under this head. Their frequency is important, as well as their conduct. Some fields are so congested that planes have to circle about for minutes before rules of the air allow them to land. Terminal operations will have to be worked out as thoroughly as they have been by railroads and the safety devices of airways—lights, radio, signals, etc.—be equally efficient.
Despite the fact that there are traffic laws to govern flying, and inspectors to enforce them, many infringements occur. Bad manners of the air exist, unfortunately, as they do on the automobile highways or on the high seas. Any maneuver which endangers another’s life needlessly, no matter where, seems to me bad manners. The pilot who flies low over crowds or stunts near the ground, I fear, is not quite playing the game. His misdemeanors can be reported to the police and his license number given just as can be an offending automobile driver.
Most pilots are careful of such breaches of etiquette for their reputation counts. There are some who overstep, and there will be a few accidents caused by them from time to time, until they gradually are reformed.
Possibly that feature of aviation which may appeal most to thoughtful women is its potentiality for peace. The term is not merely an airy phrase.
Isolation breeds distrust and differences of outlook. Anything which tends to annihilate distance destroys isolation, and brings the world and its peoples closer together. I think aviation has a chance to increase intimacy, understanding, and far-flung friendships thus.
CHAPTER XII
PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS
IT would be wrong to attempt to lure people into the air with any false assurances that everything connected with aviation runs like clock-work. It doesn’t. Because the whole industry is so new it probably has more difficulties proportionately than many others. Growing pains are inevitable. Aviation is only now emerging into the status of an industry. Hitherto it has been largely a jumble of gallant individual efforts. Even today, there are more independent producers of airplanes than there are automobile manufacturers. The survival of the fittest, with accompanying combinations, will come just as they have come in the motor industry.
2500 FEET UP—A.E. AND MRS. PUTMAN SIGN THE GUEST BOOK OF JAS. H. RAND’S TRIMOTERED FORD THE “REM-RAND”
