Instead of a cargo of bombs, a commercial airplane could carry a
cargo of small package freight for which immediate delivery is
necessary.
The use of the airplane for passenger carrying is now being developed.
The huge Caproni and Handley-Page machines will be used for this purpose
in the future. Thousands of persons will want to fly just for the
novelty, and the possibility of accidents will be reduced to the
minimum.
Again, there is the need for scientific research and improvement of the
airplane, which will keep scores of men and machines busy for years.
It will not be necessary, of course, to maintain the numerous government
training fields for aviators after the war, but some of the best of them
should be retained. I do not believe it will be necessary to discharge a
single pilot or observer from the army or to junk a single undamaged
airplane after the war.
Henry Woodhouse, Governor of the Aero Club of America and a world-wide
authority on aeronautics, made the following forecast:
Aircraft capable of lifting fifteen tons, with a speed of one hundred
miles an hour, are now in actual production. The first of the
American-built Caproni planes, equipped with four Liberty motors and
developing 1,750 horse-power has just been successfully tested. This
giant plane has a total lifting capacity of 40,000 pounds, or twenty
tons.
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