Then there is the possibility of our machines being used for seacoast patrol work, a valuable addition to our coast-guard forces which save many ocean vessels from disaster every year.
They will be largely used for army dispatch work. Instead of sending official messages from post to post by the present methods, airplanes will be used after the war as they are now being used at the front.
On the Great Lakes, airplanes can be used for coast-guard work, as on the seacoast, and they can also be used for patrolling the lakes themselves. Think how many wrecked lake vessels might have been saved in the past had there been an airplane nearby to carry its message of distress and guide rescue ships to the scene.
Forest patrol is still another opening for the use of expert aviators. Every year, almost, our great forest fires in the northwest demonstrate that our present methods of prevention of forest fires are faulty; chiefly because the fires are not discovered while they are still smoldering. Constant airplane patrol over our great forests would make forest fires a thing of the past.
Then there are any number of commercial uses to which airplanes can be put. Instead of a cargo of bombs, a commercial airplane could carry a cargo of small package freight for which immediate delivery is necessary.
The use of the airplane for passenger carrying is now being developed. The huge Caproni and Handley-Page machines will be used for this purpose in the future. Thousands of persons will want to fly just for the novelty, and the possibility of accidents will be reduced to the minimum.
Again, there is the need for scientific research and improvement of the airplane, which will keep scores of men and machines busy for years.
It will not be necessary, of course, to maintain the numerous government training fields for aviators after the war, but some of the best of them should be retained. I do not believe it will be necessary to discharge a single pilot or observer from the army or to junk a single undamaged airplane after the war.
Henry Woodhouse, Governor of the Aero Club of America and a world-wide authority on aeronautics, made the following forecast:
Aircraft capable of lifting fifteen tons, with a speed of one hundred miles an hour, are now in actual production. The first of the American-built Caproni planes, equipped with four Liberty motors and developing 1,750 horse-power has just been successfully tested. This giant plane has a total lifting capacity of 40,000 pounds, or twenty tons. The super-Handley-Page or the Caproni could easily carry fifty bags, or more than a ton of mail. This means 100,000 letters. Judging the future development of aircraft by what has taken place in the last two years, we may look for the building of a 5,000-horse-power airplane, possibly within a year.