Opportunities in Aviation

by Arthur Sweetser; Gordon Lamont

With trains seldom going above 60 miles an hour, the slowest airplane went 80 and the average daylight plane on the front probably equaled 110. The fast fighters went up to 120, 130, and even 140 miles an hour, over twice as fast as any method of travel previously known. Just as the curtain closed on the war, there had been developed in the United States a plane credited with 162-2/3 miles an hour, and no one for a moment believed that the limit had been reached.

Altitude likewise had been obliterated. The customary height for two-seated observation and bombing planes was between one and two miles, and of single-seated scouts between two and four miles. These altitudes were not the freakish heights occasionally obtained by adventurous fliers; on the contrary they were the customary levels at which the different kinds of duties were carried out. Many men, of course, went far higher. Since then an American, Roland Rohlfs, flying a Curtiss "Wasp" set the unofficial altitude record at 34,610 feet—higher than the world's highest mountain.

Life at these altitudes was not possible, of course, under ordinary conditions. The temperature fell far below zero and the air became so thin that neither man nor engine could function unaided. As a result the fliers were kept from freezing by electrically heated clothing and from unconsciousness from lack of air by artificially supplied oxygen. Similarly the oil, water, and gasolene of the engine were kept working by special methods.

The armistice threw the different nations into a dilemma as to their aviation plans. Obviously the huge war planes which were still in the building in all the belligerent countries were no longer necessary. Almost immediately, therefore, the placing of new contracts was halted by the various governments, enlistments stopped, and plans set in motion for the new requirements.

Within a very short time the United States canceled several hundred million dollars' worth of contracts on which little actual expenditure had been made by the manufacturers. Shipments of men and planes overseas were of course brought to an end and at the same time arrangements were made for bringing back from France the great aerial equipment mobilized there. Indeed, the air service units were among the first to be returned, especially the labor and construction troops in England.

Nevertheless, military aviation of the future was definitely safeguarded. A bill was presented to Congress for an aerial force of 4,000 officers and 22,000 men, a fitting contrast to the force of 65 officers and 1,120 men with which the country had entered the war. Certain flying fields and schools which had shown the greatest value in the past and promised most for the future were definitely designated for permanent use, and especial effort was made to keep in the service the best of the technical experts and designers who had helped to solve America's problems of the air.

Abroad demobilization was less rapid, as it was in all other lines. The British, who had given particular thought to after-war aviation, immediately turned to converting all their valuable war material and experience into a national force which should assure England of the supremacy of the air as well as strength in her supremacy of the seas. France, the custodian of Germany's great aerial force, found more than enough work for all her men in taking care of the hundreds of surrendered machines. Both nations at the same time took long steps toward building up the civil machinery necessary for private, non-military flying.

For several months, of course, there was a hiatus. Thought had been so concentrated on military aviation that the conversion to peace work proved slow. Only the most general plans had been made in any of the countries, and those by ardent supporters of aviation, who were forced to make the most earnest efforts to obtain consideration of the subject in the midst of all the vital problems of peace and reconstruction. Greatest of all the difficulties was that, as private flying had been prohibited during the war, there were, with the coming of peace, no rules and regulations ready for it. Also many great projects for international flights had to be postponed because of complete lack of international rules in this respect.

Nevertheless, most spectacular and convincing flights followed one another in rapid succession. The most outstanding of these flights was, of course, the first crossing of the Atlantic by seaplane—a triumph of organized effort by the navy. At the same time all over the world flights took place with astounding frequency which illustrated, as little else could, the certain future of aviation. Seas, mountains, deserts, places otherwise almost impassable were traversed with ease and speed.

Army fliers flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific within a few months of the signing of the armistice. It required but fifty hours of flying-time, just a fraction over two days. At that time no attempt was made to obtain speed, as the purpose of the trip had been to locate landing-fields and make aerial maps for future transcontinental flights.