The London-Paris Triumph The London-Paris Air Mail, established by Mr, Holt Thomas, has just completed its first six months' service. In Mr. Thomas's absence from London, Mr. Harry Harper, one of his lieutenants, discussed with a representative of the "Observer," the record of the six months, the problems of the present, and some interesting hopes for the future, "In the 26 weeks," he said, "we scheduled 373 flights, to and from Paris.
Of these we managed to complete 305. The 68 which had, either to be cancelled or in which the machines did not reach their destination, were handicapped by the one adverse condition which still prevents fiying, namely, the obscuring of the route by thick mists or fogs.
"This condition is not irremediable. We can see the time coming, even by next winter, when seientise organization will enable us to fly safely on days when at present it is unreasonably hazardous to ask a pilot to fly.
Tne Ficur Acainst Foo.
"The whole of our technical staff ave now concentrated upon combating fog. There are two problems to be solved. The first is when a pilot has ascended above the fog bank into clear air to guide him accurately to his destination. The second is, when he has arrived above his aerodrome, to guide him down through the fog and to be also certain of a safe landing on ground which the fog may be obscuring heavily.
"What we are actually doing today is to find by experiment the perfected commercial system of directional wireless and also a simplified wireless telephone which a pilot can use quite easily while he is controlling his machine. In both of these directions our technical staff are confident of success, although a good deal more experimental work is still necessary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.