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Show Aviation to Revolutionize ( America's Living Habits J .jj Civil Aeronautics Administration Provides It l' Necessary Impetus; New Developments to .J f; ' ' Have Social as Well as Material Effect. I -,'' ,'l By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. ways is divided into one-mile sections; sec-tions; that is, a train is warned a mile ahead of the block in which there is an obstruction to traffic. In the air a comparable block is now 15 miles. When the cruising speed of the commercial planes goes up the block will have to be increased. Traffic control is regulated by a federal airways system. In 1941 it was extended to the point where it separated and controlled traffic from 14 centers, established by the Civil Aeronautics administration. Over a million and a half aircraft operations were recorded in that year. The increase In speed which military mili-tary developments in airplane manufacture man-ufacture have brought about will have a social as well as a material effect. Cruising At 400 j "Think back," my air-minded friend said, "to World War I. Our maximum speed of war planes was about 180 miles. Today, 180 miles is the cruising speed of our commercial commer-cial planes. Today our fast war-planes war-planes make much more than 400 miles an hour. Let's be conservative conserva-tive and say that in 1965 our commercial com-mercial planes will be cruising at at least 400 miles. "In my opinion we will race the sun from New York to Los Angeles and not do a bad job; leave New York at noon and be in Los Angeles at 4 p. m. their time. "Going In the other direction, leave New York at 5 p. m., get to London for breakfast. Leave London Lon-don at eight in the evening and get to New York in the morning." It is easy to see that when London, New York and Los Angeles are that near together in terms of time, they will be that much nearer together in terms of thought in habits, customs cus-toms and understanding. There can be no distant places, in the natural course of existence, Americans on business or recreation will move through Singapore, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Rio, Moscow and their citizens citi-zens will be a part of our cities. When it comes to the makeup of our own towns, large and small, it is easy to see what will happen when a normal daily commuting distance to work will be stretched to a hundred hun-dred miles. The residential area of cities will fan out in monstrous circles. cir-cles. There will be a much more general admixture of viewpoint and attitude of city and country, of community com-munity and community. The melting melt-ing pot of America will produce a much more homogeneous broth of humanity. And it will temper the world. WNU Service, 1343 II Street N-W, Washington, D. C. One thing the war will produce, upon which there is general agreement, agree-ment, is national airmindedness. And there will be basic changes in the living habits of the nation, produced pro-duced by development of the airplane, air-plane, as great or greater than were produced by the automobile. The automobile and the good roads which made its use possible revolutionized small town life. The airulane, according to the experts who manage to snatch a moment to think beyond bombers and fighters fight-ers to passenger and cargo planes, Is going tf change big town life and perhaps something far more important impor-tant small-world life. Recently I had a long chat with one of the men who heads up a , plant that is turning out planes for Uncle Sam. That is a fulltime job. But he is a dreamer, too, and the moment he gets a chance to lean back and think out loud about the future, he paints an epic picture of the skyways of tomorrow. "What the roads did for the automobile auto-mobile the airfields will do for the airplane," he said to me watching imaginary airplanes in a blue cloud of cigar smoke. "We now have 25 times as many airports as we had before the war. They are in many remote places. Those places won't be remote any more." Nest for Warbirds When he said that I couldn't help recalling a trip I made recently on a special plane across the country. Because we were going to see a lot of airplane secrets, anyhow, we were (permitted to "look" I mean by that, the curtains weren't drawn as they are in all ordinary passenger planes these days. I won't reveal the details de-tails of what I saw, of course, but I can tell you it was hard to believe. be-lieve. Suddenly in the midst of nowhere no-where the runways of a field below would be visible. A few miles away I could see automobiles or railway trains moving along like bugs or worms. I knew the passengers were looking at the landscape as they passed. But plain and hill and river riv-er were all they could see. Just out i of their range of vision there would be a busy airport. Only war-birds war-birds nest on it now, but some day commercial planes will rise from these thousands of tiny intersections in the sky routes that will lace the world together in a tiny ball. The way these dots on the air map have increased is incredible. The Civil Aeronautics administration's first airport program got under way in 1941 with 385 defense landing areas designated for construction or repair. There were 282 new airports air-ports by the end of 1941 as well as 46 new seaplane bases and anchorages. anchor-ages. The significant increase in landing fields since then is, of course, a military secret. At the beginning of 1942 there were 2,484 airports in the country, of which 1,066 were municipal institutions, 930 were commercial. That in itself it-self is significant for it shows how communities themselves pushed forward for-ward to open their skygates without waiting for a commercial organization organiza-tion to do the job. The rest of the nearly twenty-five hundred fields were army and navy, emergency or miscellaneous; 30 were private. Airport Development Meanwhile, with the aid of the CAA laws were drawn up in many states which in the year 1942 resulted result-ed In the passage of 42 separate acts by state legislations designed to provide municipalities or counties coun-ties or other political divisions with, authority to cure defects in or develop de-velop airports. Ten states passed acts to acquire land and construct facilities and operate them. Some states built flight strips beside highways high-ways from unclaimed aviation tax refund money. All this shows how aviation was becoming a part of the national political consciousness. During this time one of the problems prob-lems of the air that few people, even those who constantly use air travel, realize, increased the traffic traf-fic problem. As one pilot expressed It to me, speaking of a field where he learned most of his flying: "Our traffic problem there was a lot more complicated than the one on Times square in New' York city." It is easy to see why. Consider that the block system on the rail- w m 'Austerity" Luncheon Makes Lasting Impression My friend from Australia dropped in suddenly in an army bomber the other day, as friends have a way of doing these days. His business has kept him in Australia many years. He likes the folks "down under" un-der" and he's doing a good job for our soldiers there and for Uncle Sam now. "Australia is not fighting a total war yet," he said, "but she's a darn-site darn-site farther along than America. We haven't started," he told me. "Because," I suggested, "we didn't get the scare they got and are still getting." "Yes," he said. "Nobody expected expect-ed the Japs to try to get and hold Australia, but they did fear that if there wasn't adequate protection the Japs could bomb Australian cities and the big war. plants all along the coast and put them out of business." The thing he seemed to feel that had made a great impression on the "austerity." "Take the austerity luncheons and dinners that is what they are called," he said. "I invited an American Big Shot to lunch. I gave him the menu. He said: 'I'll take a dozen oysters.' 'All right,' I told him, 'that will amount to three shillings shill-ings and will leave you sixpence, which is enough for a cup of coffee.' " It seems that you can buy just so much, no more. You can spend 65 cents for lunch and 85 cents for dinner. You can have your luxuries, but it doesn't leave anything over. And instead of a limit on income of $25,000 a year which has been suggested here; after taxes are deducted, de-ducted, $10,000 is all that is left. |