Just how the balance will be struck between airplanes and airships is a big question. It is interesting to note, however, that the supporters of the airship have worked out a general theory that the lighter-than-air vessel with its already demonstrated cruising and weight-carrying capacity will be used for all long routes, and for that almost exclusively, while the heavier-than-air vessel, with its great speed and facility for maneuvering, will be used for local flights. This, in their viewpoint, would mean that the world would be girded by great lanes of airships, fed from a few main centers by swift-scurrying airplanes radiating in from every direction.
IX[ToC]
THE CALL OF THE SKIES
The day of the air has undoubtedly come. The old order of the world has been entirely changed. A new life is breaking in over the near horizon. Almost in a moment the span of the world has shrunk to a quarter of its former size, so that where before we thought in terms of countries very soon we must think in terms of continents. The world is shortly to be linked up as it never has been before, till the great continents are brought as near as were the near-by nations of the past years.
Any one who doubts the future of aviation should realize the helplessness of the science after the armistice because of the complete lack of international laws to make possible its application in Europe, where it was most highly developed. With men and machines ready, they had to hold to the ground largely because there was in force no treaties assuring them the right to cross frontiers. The broad plans for international routes were held up because aviation itself was so big in its expanse that it could not meet its just fulfilment within national lines.
As a result a new law must be written. The law of the air will be one of the most intricate and the most fascinating in the world. It presents problems never before presented and covers a scope paralleled only by the laws of the sea. Very fortunately, however, aerial international law may be written at the very start of the science by a common international standard and practice, thus obviating the greatest part of the divergences which long years of habit have grafted into the maritime laws of the various nations. The slate is clean so that uniformity may be assured in a law which is soon to come into the most vital touch with the daily lives of the nations.
Who, for instance, owns the air above the various nations? Obviously the individual landowner has rights, especially as to freedom from damage. The nation also has rights, especially for its protection and for police work. How high, however, does this jurisdiction go? Some assert that a maximum altitude should be set, say five thousand feet, above which the air would be as free as the seas; others that each nation must have unqualified control to the limit of the ether.