ROUND THE WORLD BY AEROPLANE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 281, 1 June 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROUND THE WORLD BY AEROPLANE.

WHAT WE SHALL DO WHEN THE WAR IS OVER. By A MIDDLE-AGED MAN. There is at least one reason why'l want the war to end before 1 reach the bedridden stage of existence; I look forward to the tiime when I shall be aide to own an aeroplane and fly to and from my home, my work, and my favourite haunts in the country or beside tho sea.

Here, spade in hand, I dig over my potato patch, while overhead the young men of the Flying Corps chaso each other like swallows, or soar like skylarks until 10,000 square miles of country aro spread out in their sight, and the waters of the Channel, forty miles away, sparklo for them in the sunsnme.

It is chiefly ,however, as a means of da'ly locomotion that the aeroplane of 1925 or thereabouts captivates my imagination. By that tune, it may bo hoped, the aeroplane will l>o as easily within the reach of the average man as the small motor-ear is to-day, or would bo but for war restrictions. When the war is over there will 'be thousands of men who will know how to fly, and will regard the aeroplane >is tHe normal means of locomotion. They will want private machines of their own, and the factories which have, grown up during the war will be ready to supply them. PuANES FOR THE MILLION. I suppose that the story of the cheap American car has not been lost on British manufacturers, and if it has not we shall, as soon as tho war is done with, have some aeroplano firm laying down plant to turn out aeroplanes by the thousand at tho lowest possible price. If an aeroplano to-day costs what a motor-car cost ten years ago, it is to Ixs expected that when output is arranged on the right scale the £IOO or £lio flying machine will l>e as common a.s the cheap American car to-day. Side by side with the cheap aeroplane, to be sold in ten thousands, thero will be the larger, more expensive air-cars, which will in the future take the place of—or supplement—the motor-omni-buses which beforo the war linked tho village-', of tho countryside. These will fly at regular times on fixed journey?, *nd the man who cannot afford his own Aeroplane will take a season ticket on one of these public air-cars, which will carry eight or ten passengersjoach. Besides the private aeroplanes alid the arromnibuses, there will be aeroplanes on hire in every town, and the man in • hurry who wants to keep an appointment 100 or 200 miles away will telephone for a flying machine. Thus we shall have flown into the Aeroplane Age, and we shall see a revolution in travel much greater than tho revolution which has been wrought by the motor-car. While tho motor-car must keep to the road and lie content with its twenty, thirty, 6"? forty m'les an nour. our aeroplanes will make a liccline through the air at the rate of eighty, 100, or 120 miles an hour. The express train will easily bo eclipsed by the ij'r machine, for who will spend two hours in a tram going from London to Birmingham when he can get thero in an hour by an air-omnibus? Who will live in a Balnam villa when he can reach town as quickly from a Berkshire cottage, where ho may "keep pigs and live pretty"? Who will not prefer the Southern Swallow, with its halfhour skim to Brighton, even to the luxury of the Southern Belle?

LANDING STAGES. It will, of course, be necessary to establish landing places in all large towns or on their immediate outskirts. In London the grounds of tho White Oty might b 0 cleared for an air station, and similar stations might be opened at convenient points on other tube lines. The bu a iness man coming to town from a distance of eighty or 100 miles will thus land beside a tube tram, which would take him to his office in a. few minutes. At night, fixed or revolving lights, placed on .small Eiffel towers at intervals across country, will make aeroplane travel in the dark a practical proposition, and the aeroplanes, carryin-' starboard and port lights, will keep clear of each other as easily as tugs on the Thames. Holiday travel will be completely transformed. Tho Cook's tour a few vears hence will be made by air instead of bv and land sea. All Europe will bo within the range of a fortnight » flight. Wo shall come down in a little town among the Carpathian Mountains for luiu-h. look at Moscow for a couple of davs take a turn over the Balkans, have* tea at Constantinople, and come had-; over the top of the Alps, instead „f burrowing beneath them in a railway train Every seaside town will have, its flying roaches, and people at Brighton or Hasting* will make up parties tor n dav trip over tho Channel giving them "seven hows »t Trouvdle, and he back for an early dinner. For those with longer purses and more leisure all \sia-Indik, China, Japan-will be merely Stages ,n a holiday in the air and sooner or later the Atlantic will he bridged.

through mud and meltmg snow, and enjov the smell of earth and spring in the air. The trams are more crowded on the top than inside. Children spa.J ~„,,„.,!, the puddles, sing I a oinen Kamaraden," and wire the mud from their ex T e..sivo boot, on to hen „„ loss expensive sto-kings. >o\ei nel'un, !, :1 s s,,,;alid thawing weather been so profoundly wcliomo.

~,,.; i.vTI>T SKYSC-KAPKH. ■,-;, , ~,,,.,,,.., \r V ; York sky-'-.-raper is ~,,;-, ~,,,, lj i s pIOVI-bvl With tWOU-'tv-1-..ur passenger elevators and two f lV ight elevate,-. I.CSK « OHO S,KVI.II ..,..', ~•<(■;• elevator in the rower. Ilio | on «r,..f elevator shaft U 7ft") ft. Mi, ~,„! ,)„, ..levators are e«|iiip|M'd with ; H ,,„v-.ix n.ik, of steel cables. There ~,,. ;«ri .-xtcrier windows and .¥**> "»- ', „.,,",. J,,,,-. The building i- i'pupped '.;.;, ; ?m) toilet fixtures and SO(H)l) ~1,-trie lighting outlets, with cighty- ,., ~ miles of li-'h'-iiig wire ;'lid cili.e, 1'..."„i,... z:«l ini!c> i,l telephone ::'id bell vl .;,- r Then' are forty-three miles ot pluuibin- pipe< in the budding.