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Show UNITED STATES AND AVIATION PROGRESS. No country is making faster progress pro-gress in aviation than the United States. There has been a great impetus im-petus given to this science during the last few years owing to the exploit of Uindbi-rg and other American aviators. avi-ators. Cieat progress has been made i.ince the days of Orville and Wilbur Wr'ght but aviation is stll in its infancy in-fancy according to Willam P. Mc-Craikon, Mc-Craikon, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics. In an in-tei"sting in-tei"sting artical in the current number num-ber of the Nat'onal Republic on aviation avi-ation proniv-KS in America Mr. Mc-Ciar.-!:i-n says of the future of avi-ai.'on avi-ai.'on in the Unted States. "What does the immediate future held? It would be rash, I think, to venture a prediction. Great projects 'are in the air' for the air. An in-tei!::e in-tei!::e and almost feverish activity i3 everywhere in evidncc. "We may see, in the near future, passenger planes controlled by automate auto-mate pilots. Dessel-type engines are already here gas-burning plants are thought of adjustable propellers promise to provide the airplane with the equivalent of the speed mechanism mechan-ism of the automobile. The floating airport is under construction, and one can anticipate launching devices and a nesting gear to commercial flight. "We are witnessing the entrance into in-to the air of the private pilot who Hies 'for the fun of the thing' and in the course of his daily routine, he is beginning to make his appearance here, there and everywhere. The airplane air-plane is rapidly coming within the price- range of the average wage earn-1 earn-1 r. "Many improvements of the plane are in process. To name only one: experiments ex-periments just recently completed show that, by clever sound-proofing, the noise within the passenger plane, which in the past has been so clang-rous clang-rous as to be well-night deafening, can be reduced' to a quarter of the previously existing volume. "What part, you may ask, does the Department of Commerce play in this activity? The Air Commerce Act of 1 t'L'G assigned to our department the promotion and regulation of civil aeronautics. So the Aeronautics Branch, of which I ami privileged to be the head, inspects all planes to see that they are 'airworthy.' It examines, rates and licenses the pilots and mechanics. me-chanics. It establishes and enforces air-traffic rules. "Civil airways and their equipment, with intermediate landing fields, beacon bea-con lights and radio apparatus and other aids to air navigation are set up and maintained through the instrumentality in-strumentality of this service. The establishment es-tablishment of airports is actively encouraged. en-couraged. Air maps are published. Scientific research and development are being constantly carried out. "Some four-score millions of miles are now flown annually by air transport trans-port and air service in the United States. The operation of air mail and passenger routes is proving profitable profit-able to some of the carriers. Our exports ex-ports of aviation equipment are rapidly rapid-ly increasing. ' "At ihe end of the calendar year 192S, air mail and transport services were in operation or scheduled over 20,788 miles of airways. The number of pounds of air mail carried! had tripled in one year, from 1927 to 1923. The passenger traffic, to be snre, is still relatively small, but ther was an increase of four hundred and. twenty twen-ty per cent for 1928, as compared with the preceding year, and the. number num-ber of persons carried was nearly 53,000. "Extraordinary advances havi; been achieved in the adequate Hghti ng cf our airways." |