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Show Air Mail Service Grows Fast Regularity Destroys Curiosity m m m m . u 'a Powerful Machines Fly Daily Planes Carry All First Class Matter and Last Year Transported More Than 100,000,000 Letters and Cards," or 5000 to " East and 3000 to West Each 24 Hours r f A LTHOUGH Slt Lakers are till unsophisticated enough to I watch with interest as the great ships of the United States ! air mail service go thundering over their heads morning and ' evening, vanishing like magic over the mountains to the cast and west, very few realize that these powerful craffr are carrying all the r - first class mail of the Salt Lake office received tetwecn evening and morning, or at the rate of 5000 letters a day east and 3000 west. This in addition to the larger amount of mail from other points that is brought in and dispatched each day with a regularity that for the entire service between San Francisco and New York vaa declared to be 3 per cent of the time all laat year, rain or ehlne. The eervice carried over 100.000.00 lettera l- and carda of first claas matter- last year in addition to rreat quantities of aeoond class when conditions permitted. permit-ted. There are 104 ahlps In tha service, a third of them belna; in actual opera-. tionjndjwo-iblrdabelnaUjeldiaj.. serve. EYE-OPENER. These facts were aacertained from Assistant Postmaster William Block of the local office: Claron Nelson, superintendent su-perintendent of Woodward field in Salt Lake, and from an article by Howard How-ard Ming-os In the New York Times Maffasine, as reprinted In the February 1 issue of the Literary Digest under the title "Tha Mails Must Fly." They constitute a decldrd eye opener to those who have considered the air mall service as a mere experiment that might be costing; Uncle Ham much money and risking many lives. As a matter of fact. It develops that many of the larger planes are carrying as much mall as the average mail distributing distrib-uting car and doing it more cheaply. Officials of the air service are looking miles, and emergency fields at conve nlent points between them. CARRYING POWER. Each of the thirty machines there are 100 in the service today, but two-thirds two-thirds are held In reserve carries from IS. 000 to 40.000 letters, as many as the average railway mail distributing car, which, with Its pigeon bole compartments compart-ments and space for the necessary cler-H ical help, haa little more capacity. It costs more to operate the mail cara, say the officials, because railway mall clerks employed on the trains are more highly paid for leas mall handled by them than are the clerks at the railway mail distributing terminals in all cities cit-ies where the air mall is sorted at night Officials explain the saving In time by pointing to one city fur example. exam-ple. The bulk of .New York's mall Is deposited de-posited sfter 4 o'clock In the afternoon. after-noon. The last transcontinental mall train leaves at 1:40 o'clock that evening. eve-ning. It cannot carry all of the late mail, because the pouches 'cannot be made up In time. What Is left over, as well as tha mail deposited during the night, is dispatched westward by plane shortly after daylight. It Is carried In trucks to Curtlsa field. Lona Island. lurwwu io in, eariy oay wiien prac-tically prac-tically all of the mail of the United States will be going through the air. HOW DISTRIBUTED. In Salt I -a lie, all the first class mall received after the last train dispatch of early evening goes to Woodward field In the arry morning, where It ie put aboard the east snd westbound planes. Seven and eight sacks usually go to the east and four and five sacks to the west. One is dispatched to Elko, one to Reno, one to Hacramento and one or possibly two to fan Fianclsco. When the mail arrives here by plane nt or before noon from the east and from the west about 3:30 on an average, aver-age, it is all brought to the local post-office, post-office, where the Halt Lake maii is segregated and the balance dispatched by train where such dispatch will hurry hur-ry it to It destination. This, of course, is frequently the case as trains travel by night, while the night flying has not yet been Inaugurated, although the fir&t aucceasful tests were made re- Scently. NEED NO MARK. It is not necessary to mark one's letters let-ters "air mail." They will go that way n anyhow If the play comes right. For Instance. If one malls a letter to Cheyenne In the Bait Lake office at J 6 o'clock, it will possibly miss the last i and the plane seta out Immediately. TAKE NIGHT MAIL. The procedure is followed at each terminal and inland junction point, planes taking on the accumulation of night mall in tha respective cities, aa well aa that brought In on trains and planes from .other points. The planes make so much better time than the trains that a saving of from twenty-four twenty-four to forty-eight hours Is effected in delivery from coast to coast, approximately approx-imately half the time required by the all-the-way traih delivery. Your letter let-ter mailed in New York is delivered In San Francisco Inside of fifty hours. , With perfection of the system, they expect ex-pect to attain thlrty-slx-hour delivery. Thesjold method required a hundred. Not only does that mall which starts by plsne arrive more quickly, but also that starting on the trains all along the transcontinental system, because by a close connection system all the first class mail is changed and interchanged inter-changed from train to plane wherever it will create a saving in time. Pilot Christenson on December I flew 10,000 letters from Chicago to New York in five houra thirty-one mlnuta. Tbe fastest train requires eglhteen hours. BORROWED MULE8. The ftilot'a first Iknnrhl I. I. -. hla mH pouches to tho nearest railroad, and many and varied are the reports of -rrhlciea an tt power employed. One pilot not long a (ro borrowed a pair of mulct from a farmer and packed tho mail seven miles ever the hills to the railroad. rail-road. A day In January, to quote another's report: "Day wu damp andnisty. Zero weather. Mita froze to wires and struts tbrawir as rut ai It struck. Wires soon became coated. Struts the same. Instruments filled with ico and machine could not stay In the air. Landed at North Liberty, lnd., kicked Ice off plane. Took off as before. Ice formed again and brought me down near Mlllersburjc. lnd. Punctured a tire." An elaborate organisation has been perfecd to keep the complex system of trailers air routes In operation. At the pofltofftce department In Washington Washing-ton hana-s a map of the United Hiajes on which are tag-fed the positions of all pilots and planes operating during the day. Changes are made hourly. Re-ports Re-ports on the weather are relayed In quick measagea along the various toutes. and the entire service !s kept continually Informed of all routine, businea. Facilities hive also been, provided for the tralninr of nilots. eastern train dispatch because of the ruah of business. In spite of all warn- ing a. the public refuses lo mail early, and the bulk of the letters come flooding flood-ing In between 4 and 6 In the afr- noon. The result Is a big congestion and in spite of a double force all of the letters cannot be sorted to catch the last trains. Eat and went malls then go Into airplane sacks and by sunup the nest morning your- letter will be soar- ing across the mountains and will reach Cheyenne about the time of the train mail that left the night before. IS INTERESTING. The system Is Interestingly described by Mr. Mingo in his article as follows: They are as regular sa the railroads. the.se mail planes. They maintained their schedules 93 per cent of the time all last year, rain or ahine, a consistently consist-ently as other mediums of transportation. transporta-tion. The comparison stands. The air mail system la like a railroad. It has its junction points and terminals, its repair depots and service stations. Kvery 400 miles or so New York, Cleveland, Chicago,' Omaha, Cheyenne, Walt Lake. Reno and an Francisco Ht. Louis and St. Paul. Washington and Philadelphia are the terminal. with Junction points and faxt train connertiona at Intervals of a hunrtrd 1 MUST BE TRAINER. As we read: At College Park. Md.. pilots are . trained and machines teste. The pilot 1 must understand his business thoroughly thor-oughly before he is oven considered for acceptance. By this means air mall officials are taking advantage of the training so many Amerlcns received re-ceived during tha war. The chief of flying operations Is a pilot. So. also, are tha chief of pilot examination and chief of radio. Tha chief engineer is I a pilot. Those officials are familiar with airplanea and their uses. The ex-Braining ex-Braining officer haj had more than &0A0 applications to consider for positions posi-tions as pilots. From that number he has picked MOO for initial tests. Only 215 were appointed. Kitty of these have 4een summarily discharged for Insubordination. They could not resist re-sist tho temptation to perform stunts and thrill residents near the fields, j They had failed to considet themselves as racing car drivers transferred to J trucks, nun the less important and involving in-volving just as much skill. 1 SYSTEM CHANGED. I I'ntil recently a pilot received from $"000 to $300 a year salary, the .'n- i crease depending on the number of ( hours he had flown the malls. But the r system was not practical. A pilot upon j attaining the maximum flying time and realizing that he could receive no high- er pay stood back or disappeared and permitted the younger men to take out hie plane, thereby ct, .cuing the begin- ncr to reach his majority more quick-i quick-i ly. Tn so confused the service that , sx-hrdjles were often interrupted. The i system was finallv chanced nil mioiJ irec-lvin; a base pay of t:000 a year j and & cent a mil for fiyinc;. L'nder (this rate pilots now receive from jO0 I to $790 a year. j It is hy strict enforcement of the i rules and providing; the pilot With all! I known fan lines for his work that th ! officials helieva they are building up a' tv Ice which will develop steadily n-Ltil n-Ltil the entire country is one va?t net-1 work of air mail trur.V Unas. j |