OCR Text |
Show Here's A Suggestion The United States Government is spending, it seems, about $80,-000,000 $80,-000,000 a year in the development of aviation. The Army and Navy aviation appropriations are about $30,000,000 each per year to which is added an appropriation of around $20,000,000 for air mail For some time a movement has been underway to bring about the consolidation of the Army and Navy air forces into one organization organi-zation but this has been opposed by service experts. Whether it should be done or not is a mattet that the individual citizen will find it difficult to form a conclusive conclu-sive opinion on. As we understand it, the government's gov-ernment's appropriations for the air mail service is largely to provide pro-vide flying facilities to be utilised by private companies with mail contracts. It was estimated in 1931 that there were 65,000 air mail routes in operation, covering 43,745 airplane miles, with mail average daily of 108, 423 pounds. It seems to us that if the United States wishes to develop a reserve air force, including planes, equipment equip-ment and personnel, for possible use in times of war, that the government gov-ernment could do this very easily by forming an air mail corps, to be operated by the government, with an enlisted personnel similar to the Coast Guard. This would insure the adeouate training of the pilots without interferring with the mail service. It could be enlarged from year to year and should, in a reasonable time, provide pro-vide a tremendous aerial reserve which would be readiiy available to protect this country when and if necessary. |