The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast limes. Wednesday, November 23, 1927 COMMERCIAL AVIATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 November 1927, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast limes. Wednesday, November 23, 1927 COMMERCIAL AVIATION.

TirF. world has paid well deserved tribute, says a United States journal, to Col. Charles A. Lindbergh. It would be superfluous here to adtl to the wealth of praise heaped on the intrepid youth who charted an air course linking Europe and America. The romantic conditions under which the flight was taken, the engaging personality of the young man himself, and the genuine and unaffected dignity with which he received the honors accorded him, have caught the world’s fancy. His place in history is established as firmly as that of tiie Brothers Wright, to whom we owe the airplane itself. While the world is applauding the courage of the deed itself, the fame of Lindbergh in the end will rest on the fact that through him men were finally brought to believe that trans-oeeaiuc was not a mere rendezvous with death engagement but a practical extension of methods of human service which will knit the people of all continents in closer accord. When the dream of passenger and commercial air traffic is to be realised, is, as yet, an undetermined question. That it will he, sooner or later an actuality is universally conceded. One of the features of several of the short addresses made t>v Col. Lindbergh after his return to America tuu> not escaped attention. He warned his hearers against over-opti-mism. Those who encourage the idea that commercial air fleets will be sailing between the United States and Europe within a very few months, ho maintains, are doing the jcatise of aviation harm. His own view is that a period of some years—five or ten at least—will elapse before trans-oceanic flights on a practical scale can lie called successful accomplishment. Since the first successful airplane flight was made less than twenty-four years ago, this does not seem an overly long time to wait. Men well advanced in years will no doubt live to witness this final perfection of a means of travel that bad been talked about for countless generations, but which only a few short years ago became a realized ambition. The immediate development or aerial communication is in the direction of land lines. In this particular the United States leads in the matter of long distance communications. Of course her enormous stretches of territory have given her a great advantage. Let it not be forgotten that while Lindbergh flew 3,600 miles in a single plane, and Chamberlain a little farther. New Work keeps h. town with San Francisco and Los Angeles, almost an equal distance, every thirtyfive hours and less. These flights are not continuous, in the taiattefr df single planes, hut the speed is about equivalent to that made by the transAtlantic fliers. If the airplane flight to the shores of Europe could be facilitated bv stops en route, then the trip would excite no more attention than the daily starts and delivery of transcontinental airmail. Perhaps that will be the solution—either that or the construction of planes so much superior to those now in use that there can be no comparison. That we

are on the verge of startling airplane developments admits of no denial. They are being expedited by heroic pioneers of the air like Lindbergh. Honors are his in sense much higher than contained in tlie common belief that he has accomplished a tremendously brave and dashing hit of sportsmanship. He has made the whole world dream, he has awakened ambition, and has set an ideal short of which mankind will not stop, and the accomplishment of which is in .sight. That is more than most men are given to do m this world. It is Lindbergh's claim to fame and the world honors itself in honoring him.