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.

FOOTNOTES:

IIIToC

TRAINING AN AIRPLANE PILOT

Any ordinary, active man can fly. That is to say, any man with nerve enough to take a cold bath or drive an automobile down Fifth Avenue can maintain himself in the air with an airplane, and turn into a good pilot with practice. In other words, the regular man who rides in the Subway, who puts on a straw hat on May 15th or 20th, as the case may be, has not only the right to be in the air, but owes it to himself to learn to fly.

Any one with a reasonable amount of intelligence can be made a good pilot. He need not hold a college degree, or even a high-school diploma, tucked away in some forgotten place. If he has the sense of touch of the normal man, the sense of balance of a normal man, can skate, or ride a bicycle, he should be in the air, flying. There is a difference between the war or army pilot and the peace-time flier yet to be developed.

War flying calls for highly trained men, a man who has proved himself fit for combat under all conditions, a man who can shoot straight, think quickly, and turn immediately. He must possess a little more than the average nerve, perhaps, or he must be trained to the point where shooting and maneuvering are the natural reactions to certain circumstances. He must be able to stand altitudes of 20,000 feet; he must be quick with his machine-gun, have a knowledge of artillery, and know, in fact, a little about everything on the front he is trying to cover. This requires training and aptitude.

The day is coming for the man who wants to make a short pleasure flight, or go from town to town, touring by air. He need know nothing of machine-guns or warfare. He may never want to do anything more hazardous in the way of maneuver than a gentle turn. His maximum altitude would be perhaps 8,000 feet. He would in all probability be flying a machine whose "ceiling" was 10,000 feet, and he might never care to tour at a height higher than 2,000 feet. There is no reason why he should go high. One can have all the thrills in the world at 2,000 feet, follow the ground more easily, without wasting time or gasolene in attempts to fly high enough so that the earth looks like another planet below.

Let us illustrate a bit from the Royal Air Force of Canada, which is as good as any other example. The experience of the flying service of one country has been essentially that of another country, and we Americans may yet learn of the air from the English. In England the air is just another medium of travel, as much a medium as the ground and water—but that is, of course, another story.

In 1917 the Royal Flying Corps, later incorporated into the Royal Air Force, came to Canada to take up the instruction of Canadian boys for flying in France. Americans enlisted with the pick of the Canadian youth, and droves were sent overseas. Very soon the cream had been skimmed off and there came a time when material was