FLYING IN U.S.A.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 6

FLYING IN U.S.A.

CROWDS OF PATRONS. EFFECT ON RAILWAYS. Attracting little attention because the American public now thinks of flying only in military terms, civil aviation in the United States is growing at a pace that astonishes even Australians who have been close to developments here in the past few rears. Less than three weeks ago (writes Keith Palmer in the Melbourne "Herald") I flew from San Francisco to Loe Angeles in a United Statee Airlines Mainliner—a DC3 similar to the machines on Australian inter-capital routes. Pascal Cowan, United'* public relations man, who drove me to the airport, told me there would not be a vacant seat in the 'plane, or any 'plane, that day. His company waa having its record day on this rich route, with 405 passengers out of San Francisco. Normally 12 services daily handle the traffic; this day, nearly every service wa* being operated by two 'planes. "What you must see in Los Angeles is our new Stratoliner," he said. "It is the first change in main line equipment since the DC3 was introduced." The Stratoliners, four-eiuWned 33passenger machines that make a Los Angeles-New York flight a duek-to-dawn affair, had been on the run only a few weeks, but they were booked out for weeke ahead. The travelling public wanted to sample the new aeroplanes. Soon there will be plenty of opportunities for America's growing total of air traveller* to fly in new machines, for several important traneport 'planes are soon to take the air. And, like the Stratoliner, they are all helping to make aviation go higher, as well as bigger. The higher you fly, the faster you m> and the less bad weather you meetbroadly speaking. So most of the new transport* wUI .follow the four-engined stratoliner in having cabins supercharged with oxygen to keep the passengers in the comfort of several thousand feet below their actual height.

Thirty tad Forty PuMogtra. Douglas has orders for 02 DC4's—« smaller 'plane than the flr«t DC4 now owned by the Japanese, but «till a real giant. Engineering of the new 'plane is practically complete, most of the plan* are out of the huge drawing office where several hundred men work, and we saw the first jigs being built to form a base for construction of the wing, which will lift 40 passengers. It will have a supercharged cabin. So will the Curtiss-Wright transport recently test flown, tout not yet ordered by any airline. It i* a monster of a twin-engined 'plane, seating 33 passengers—slightly larger than the 31-pas-senger twin-engined DC« which Douglas is. also preparing to build. And with size, speed is going up, too. The DC6 will cruise at 246 miles an hour—nearly 60 miles an hour faster than present airline 'plane*. The Lockheed Excalibur, a fpur-engined type ordered by Pan-American -fo use oh its South American routes side by side with its Stratoliners, will fly about the same speed. But producing new types takes time, and in the meantime the traffic continues to grow. Each month this year the airlines are reporting increases in passenger loads varying from 60 to more than 100 per cent, in comparison with the same month of last year. In the first quarter of 1040, ail lines carried 647,861 passengers, an increase of 71.45 per cent over the same period for 1030. On the coast airports I watched load after load of passengers board their aeroplanes, ready to sleep their way to New York. They left from magnificent terminal buildings that nave the sice and facilities of a big railway station; their 'planes took off from long, paved runways that would bring joy to the hearts of any Australian airline pilot.

These crowding passengers are the airlines' main problem to-day, forcing new orders for standard 'planes, and will look small beside those of tomorrow. The growth in business is not confined to internal flying. Two Atlantic round trips a week have been increased to three. New 'planes have given added speed to the South American rune. A service linking the United States across Canada with -Alaska i* only a few weeks old. The New Zealand service bring*! the total California-Hawaii connections to three a fortnight. Railway* Alarmed. This year, for the first time, the airlines of the United State* will carry more than 2,000,000 passengers. For the first time they are really frightening the railways, as they eat into the cream of the transport business. The railways, with a dark hint at what might happen to the over-daring, put up huge posters reading, "Travel by train and be safe!" There was a bad rail accident, and the slogan y-as changed overnight to "Travel y ~,i r * m . a ? d rel «*-" The airlines smiled. The airlines know that no form of transport can continue for ever without accident., and they know that «ome time they will have another fatal emaeh. But they believe that they are now getting so many people into the air and provmg the safety of flying in comparf! son with other transport methods so conclusively that an accident now would not stop the swift growth of business. In operations they can teach us, perhaps a little. But the real lesson we will have to learn from them « «2 as the war is over is that airports, and a iport buildings must I* much better than those we have now. •«="«