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Show AIR MAIL PROBLEM IS GROUND DELAYS Slow Delivery Is Cause of Most of Complaints. Washington. The niajnrlly of coin-plnlnls coin-plnlnls coih'itiiIhk slow delivery of lilr mull concern lelnyn which occur on the! ground, ll In admitted liy olliclal.s of thu I'ost-OIIlce department. The department de-partment has launched u new effort lo Increase the speed of ground handling ho that the main value of transporting mail through tho nlr may not bo lost through this handicap. Tile problem of Increasing ground speeds Is dllllcult, according to Karl Wadsworth, superintendent of ulr mull service. The most that the department depart-ment can do, says Mr. Wadsworth, Is to utilize to the fullest extent the existing ex-isting means of transportation. Each city and the mall airport terminal presents pre-sents different dlllicultles. I Police Speed Deliveries. Months of experimenting have been required to determine what Is the best method of bringing New York's ulr mall from the eastern terminal at the Nowurk airport Into the general post olllce ut Eighth avenue and Twenty-third Twenty-third street. In most cities the municipal government govern-ment aids delivery by giving trucks which nre delivering the air mall the right of way and allowing them to disregard dis-regard the speed limits. In other cities these trucks are accorded the same attention at-tention iu tralllc which (Ire apparatus receives. Police are notified of the coming of the trucks and see that no tralllc obstructions bar the way. Amphlblani Used in Chicago. A Hpeclal experiment was tried In Chicago In an effort to speed the delivery de-livery of mall arriving on the transcontinental trans-continental mall planes. Amphibian Jilune service was authorized there to deliver the mall to the city, the amphibians am-phibians taking off from the air mail 3eld and flying to the lake front, where the malls could be delivered to :rucks which then had only a short aul to downtown post olllce stations. This service must be suspended In the winter as the amphibians cannot oper-ite oper-ite because of the Ice In the lake. Tests have been authorized of air mall catching devices but the feasibll-.ty feasibll-.ty of placing them on the top of post olllce buildings Is not yet determined because of the fact that regulations provide that airplanes must not fly lower than 000 feet when passing over cities. It Is possible that regulations might be changed to allow the mall planes to nse such devices, but even then It is problematical what the performance of the planes would be down In the canyons formed by tall office buildings. The possibility of the use of pneumatic pneu-matic tubes for the transport of air mall from the airports to the post offices of-fices also Is under consideration. The expense of Installing tubes over such long distances Is one of the limiting factors In such a plan, according to Mr. Wadsworth. |