LONDON TO EVERYWHERE BY AIR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 177, 22 April 1919, Page 8

LONDON TO EVERYWHERE BY AIR

gVISTA OF GREAT FLYING ROUTES

FUTURE OF CAIRO

"The aeroplane of warfare was required to combine the qualities of the hawk, the skylark, the swift, ami the tumbler pigeon," says the"' "Observer." "The lieaco machine must have, the punctual and regular habits of the 'homer.' And this means a constant battle with natural forces, different in character and les3 perilous, we hope, to life, but not less real nor demanding less courage r.na coolness than' the daily rough-and-tumble with Fokker and Aviatik in tho clouds. In many respects the quality of daring and courage required by pilots of tho air are no greater than that possessed ' by the Elizabethan adventurers who burst into seas unknown in mere cock-boats.

"Tho way of the air is not yet open for heavy commodities. But already wcrk is being done to exploit its opportunities for bringing about swifter communion between mind and mind. The telegraph and the telephone, even in their sublimated wireless form, have not superseded tho post. The sign-manual is still necessary to tho dealings of man witsi man. It is therefore to an aerial postal servico that tho minds of the pioneers have first turned. It has been confidently prophesied that, in the near future, no place in the world will be more than four days distant from London. MajorGeneral Sir F. H. Sykes, more cautious, is content to predict the delivery of the London mail in Delhi within eight days. But that, wo may conclude, is an estimate of what is possible at present and rot an attempt to foresee the future. "Let us take tho journey to India as the starting-point. The route, according to General Sykes, will be by .Marseilles, Pisa, Some, Taranto, Crete, Cairo, Damascus, Bagdad, Basrah, Bander Abbas, and so to Delhi. Thus it traverses the cradle of the earliest civilisation of man,-where, from forgotten ages, he lias dreamed his dreams of flying. First by tliQ Icarian 1 Sea, where tho legendary pioneer of aviation met his fate; over Palestine, where Isaiah saw his vision of the six-winged Seraphim; through Assyria, where winged ciealures are the feature of all tho monuments. For these thousands of years man has been waiting till mail should discover that which the sage declared to be past finding out —the way of a bird through the air. And now, to -the nations of the North ami the "West, the aeroplane is a commonplace. The Eastern also, owing to tho war, lias ceased to regard it with wonder, though he may with dread. . Cairo Air Junction, "Cairo, is destined to fie one of tho great aerial junctions of the world. It will not only be 'the. extra-European starting-point of the Indian mail route, but also that of the line to the Cape. It is just twenty years ago since Kitchener recovered tho Sudan from the barbarism of Jlahdist rule, and already not only a railway but an aerial route is planned across it to link up tho British South African possessions with the Mother Country, /Wo are numb to sensation nowadays. There seems nothing remarkable in'landing at El Obeid—though the widow of Hicks 'Pasha 'S only recently dead—and continuing the flight by way of Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika into Rhodesia, the Transvaal and (Jape Colony. Hut look on it. from, the point, of view of—lgt us say—the Masai warrior, who will fell the time by the drone of tho mail speeding homeward at a hundred miles an hour as accurately as by the sun. Imagine Africa seamed with aerodromes, meteorological stations, and wireless stations, and think of Speke, Livingstone, and Stanley plodding on to the great lakes! Yet these liist discoveries am within tho memory of living men. "In Delhi, tho ancient capital of the Moguls, restored to its pride of- place in India as the coronation gift oi the King-Emperor, we may perhaps find another of the world's great aerial junctions. Hence, tho air mail may . start on its way to China, over the plateau of Thibet, or tho Burman jungles. Hence, 100, other lines may' wing their way through Siam and the' Malay Peninsula to Borneo, Celebes," and Timor, whence tliey will find the handiest jumpiug-off place for a," landing on the ■ island continent of Australia. This thev--will travorse from north to south, linking up Port Darwin with Sydney and Melbourne, and so,' by Hobart, to New Zealand. The Land Stations, "The problem of long-distance flying Is less a problem of the air than of the ground. The proper organisation of tho aerial ways demands a continuous chain of posts which must, in many cases, be established in places remote from civilisation and yet be equipped with all its most recent appliances. The outlay will be enormous before even the route to India and that from Cairo to.the Cape can be adequately organised. Each station is estimated to cost ,£60,000.. Each post will confirm - and guarantee the white man's civilisation. It will be a .centro from which its influence will radiate among the 'fluttered folk and wild' of the dark Continent of mid-Asia. It is said tiittt the coming of the aeroplane has already had a most wholesome effect on tli.o turbulent Pathan tribes. It. acts like- a kite over a covey of partridges, yet its infliienco makes wholly for peace. It'cannot lie used to serve ambition, as an instrument for annexation. Its coereivo influence is that- of the beneficient policeman, and, in the aerial stations to bo established, the League of Nations will find the best and readiest means of enforcing its peace upon thA tribes whoso restlessness _ has h> often been the source of jealousies and contentcntions a.iuong the nations."