ROUND THE WORLD BY AEROPLANE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3052, 13 April 1917, Page 4

ROUND THE WORLD BY AEROPLANE

AVHAT AVE SHALL DO AVHEN THE WAR IS OVER. "There is at least ono reason why I went the war to end before 1 reach the bed-ridden stage of existence. I look forward to the time when I shall be able to own an aeroplane and fly to and from my liome, my work, and my favourite haunts in tho country or beside the sea," writes a noddle-aged man in the "Daily Express." "Here, spado in hand, I dig over my potato patch, while overhead the young men of the Flying Corps chase each other like swallows, or soar like skylarks until 10,000 square miles of country are spread out iu their sight, and the waters of the Channel, forty miles away, sparkle for them in the sunshine. "It is chiefly, however, as a means of daily locomotion that the aeroplane of 1925 or thereabouts captivates my imagination. By that time, it may bo hoped, tho aeroplano will be as easily within the reach of tho average man as the small motor-car is to-day, or would be but for war restrictions. AAlien tho war is over there will bo thousands of men who will know how to Hy, and mil regard the aoroplano as the normal mean's of locomotion. They will want private machines of their own, and l tho factories which liavo grown up during tho war will bo ready to supply them. I suppose that tho story of the clicap American car has not been lost on British' manufacturers, and if it has not wo shall, as soon as the war is done with, have some aeroplane firms laying down plant to turn out aeroplanes by the thousand at the lowest possible price. 'If au aeroplane to-day costs wdiat a motor-car cost ten years ago, it is _to ho expeoted that when output, is arranged on the right scale the £100 or £150 flying machine will bo as"common ns tho cheap American car to-day. Side by side with tho cheap aeroplane, to bo sold in ten thousands, there will be tho larger, more expensive air cars, which will in tho future tako tho place of—or supplement —the motor omnibuses which before the -war linked tho villages of the countryside. These will ■fly at regular times on fixed journeys, and the man who cannot afford his own aeroplane will take a season ticket on ono of tho publio air cars, -which will carry eight or ten passengers each. Besides .the privato aeroplanes and the air omnibuses, tliero; will bo aeroplanes on hire in- every town, and the man'in a hurry who wants to keep an appointment 100 or 200 miles away, will telephono for a flying machine. Tims' we shall have flown into tho aeroplane age", and wo shall see a revolution in travel much greater than the rovolution which has been wrought by ■ tho motor-car. • AVhile the . motorcar must keep to the road, and be content with its 20, 30, or 40 miles an hour, our aeroplanes will make a beeline through tho air at the rate of 80, I 100, or 120 miles an hour. The express train will easily bo eclipsed by the air machine, for who will s;>.>nd two hours in a. train going from London to Birmingham when he ciin get there in' an hour by an air-'iinnibus ? AVho will live in a Balham villa when lie can reach town as quickly from a Berkshire cottage, when lie may "'keep pigs and live protty"? AVho will not prefer the Southern Swallow, with its half-hour skim to Brighton, even to tho._ luxury of .. the Southern Belle ? Holiday travel will be completely transTho Cook's tour a few years hence will be made by air instead 1 of by land and sea. All Europe will be within tho range of a fortnight's flight. AVe shall come down in a little town among the Carpathian Mountains for luncli, look in at Moscow for a couplo of days, tako a turn over the Balkans, haVo tea at Constantinople, and como back over the top of the Alps, instead of burrowing beneath them in a railway train. Every seaside town • will have its flying coaches, and people at Brighton or Hastings will make up parties for a. day trip over tho Channel, giving them "seven hours at Trouville," and be back for an early dinner. For those with longer purses and more leisure, all Asia—lndia, China, Japan—will he merely stages in a. holiday iu tho air, and sooner or later the Atlantio will be bridged.