The four planes that made this trip might be considered as the pioneers of vast flocks of airplanes which within a short time will be winging their way from coast to coast. If, with machines built specifically for war purposes and with no special landing-fields or routes laid out, aviators could successfully travel from one coast to the other in fifty hours of flying-time, how much more rapidly will future trips be made when special touring-planes have been developed, routes and landing-fields are laid out, repair-shops are built, and the trip becomes a matter of routine rather than aerial experiments.
The effect that this new method of travel will have on American life and development is staggering to the imagination. San Francisco and New York will be almost neighbors, while Chicago and New Orleans will be but a pleasant day's trip apart. The business man, the statesman, and even the courier can be transported from one end of the country to the other, independent of steel rails and other devices, in record time.
Such experiments have already proved successful in Europe. The British Foreign Office in London, anxious to keep in close touch with the Peace Conference at Paris, turned to the airplane to assure quick transportation of men and documents. The slow train trip with the irksome transfer to and from the Channel steamer and the more irksome voyage across the Channel itself, were avoided by a special service through the air. Thus two great capitals were brought within a few hours' time of each other, which greatly facilitated the vital negotiations under way.
Civilians were finally granted the right to make the trip under military supervision. Fourteen passengers were transported from Paris to London in two hours and forty minutes as against six hours and forty minutes, the fastest time ever made by any other means of travel. Each of them had twenty pounds of luggage, and luncheon of cold ham and champagne was served on board over the Channel, followed by a game of cards. It was easily demonstrated by the return trip that men could leave either capital after breakfast, have several hours in the other, and return home for dinner.
Then a French flier with six passengers made the flight from Paris to Brussels. The time consumed between the two capitals was but two hours as against over five by the ordinary train travel. As an instance of some of the problems which this particular flight brought about, it was observed that a Belgian policeman approached the plane as it was about to leave and inquired for passports and papers. Everybody made excuses for not having them. The policeman refused to allow the airplane to leave. Finally the pilot, losing his patience and temper, started the motor and flew off before the angered official knew what had happened.
Two other French aviators about the same time crossed the Mediterranean from France to Algiers and back in the same day. Though unequipped with seaplane devices, they started out with full confidence that their motors would carry them over the water. With only their navigating instruments and an occasional vessel to guide them, they reached their destination after a perfect trip and created a great sensation among the natives who came down to see the airplanes alight.
Far more spectacular, however, was the flight made from London to Delhi. A Handley-Page machine, which had flown from London to Cairo during the war and taken part in the final military operations against the Turks, left Cairo, on November 30th, shortly after the armistice. Five and three-quarter hours later the airplane with five passengers reached Damascus, a trip practically impossible except through the air because of the ravages of the war. At 7.40 the next morning they set out again, flew northeast along the Jebel esh Shekh Range to Palmyra, then east to the Euphrates, down that river to Ramadi, and thence across to Bagdad, a flight of 510 miles made in six hours and fifty minutes without a single stop, part of it over country untrod even by the most primitive travelers. Thence they went on via Bushire, Bander Abbas, Tcharbar, and Karachi to Delhi, where they received a tremendous ovation as the first fliers to arrive from the home country. From Delhi they continued on without mishap to Calcutta. This distance from Cairo to Karachi, 2,548 miles, was made in thirty-six hours' flying-time; from Karachi to Delhi the distance is 704 miles, and from Delhi to Calcutta 300, a total of 4,052 miles from the main city of Egypt to the greatest commercial port of India. No route had been surveyed, no landing-places obtained, no facilities provided. Territory inaccessible to ordinary travel, land where the white man is almost a stranger, was crossed. Yet it was all done as part of the day's work, in no sense as a record-breaking or spectacular trip.
The certainty of flight from London to India was demonstrated. A bi-weekly service for both passengers and mails was at once planned. Almost immediately preparations for the route were worked out, twenty-five airdromes and landing-fields were designated, of which the main ones would be at Cairo and Basra on the Tigris, with subsidiary fields at Marseilles, Pisa, or Rome, Taranto, Sollum, Bushire, Damascus, Bagdad, Bander Abbas, Karachi, Hyderabad, and Jodhpur. It is estimated that the flight of 6,000 miles, at stages of about 350 each, would take seven or eight days as against the present train and steamer time of five or six weeks. At the same time another route far shorter than that which would be necessary by following the sea route lies over Germany, Russia, and the ideal flying-land along the Caspian Sea, Krasnovodsk, Askabad, Herat, Kandahar, and Multan.
As with Asia Minor and Asia so with Africa, the British at once made plans for aerial routes. Only a few weeks after the armistice announcement was made of plans for an "All Red Air Route" from Cairo across the desert and the jungle to the Cape. This could all be done over British territory, with the part over Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika covered by hydroplanes. The moment men were released from the war, surveying of this route was begun and tentative plans made for landing-fields every 200 miles over the 5,700-mile trip.
The air is ours to do whatever we can with it. There must be developed a large interest in this country in the business of flying. We must make the air our third, fastest, and most reliable means of communication between points in a way to compete with transportation on land and sea. The airplane, instead of being the unusual thing, must become a customary sight over our cities and villages. The first step in the development is the training of airplane pilots and mechanics.