The Atlantic has been crossed and recrossed, the vast expanse between Great—_ Britain and Australia has been bridged. Aismen have been through the heart of Africa. Regular air mails are running throughout Europe ant machines are to essay the South Pole. We have yet the London and Shanghai air mail track to blaze in order to complete another place in placing a girdle round the world.
It has been proved, over the most difficult route in the world climatically, that the reliability obtained is sufficient for the service to be of real value to the business man. Over 60,000 miles were flown in winter weather between London and Paris in 22 weeks resulting in no accident whatsoever, machines maintaining an average' speed of 100 miles per hour.
There are three ways open for a China-London route: one the trail east to west across the continent of Europe and Asia; the second linking up with the London-Indian mail service vid Calcutta; and the third and most practical way from Shanghai across Russia to London, which should ultimately require no more than three days.
Geographically and climatically the first could be flown, but would necessitate an enormous initial expense. The second, although it has the advantage of linking up with the Australian and Indian service, is the longer route for Shanghai; the more practical and less expensive is through Russia.
THE Trans-Spuexias Rauway, Russia with her lateral railway running cast to west in an almost direct line, offers an exceptional opportunity for the airman. The track is cleared for a considerable distance on either side of the lines, affording ample opportunity for the making of emergency landing grounds. Stations are frequent and could be utilized for navigation purposes. A telegraph system runs parallel and links up with the big cities. There are no big forests yr long stretches of water to cross, and for night flying the track could be made almost perfect at the very small expense of erecting light houses as used at the Hendon Aerodrome.
Naturally the whole scheme depends on a peace of some kind with the Russians, which, however, may come at any moment. Ail that would be necessary is for the machine to make its way from Shanghai to Peking, thence to Harbin, along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Warsaw, and thereafter to Berlin, Brussels and London. A service is already flying between the two last named places. Therefore we have only to concern ourselves with the Shanghai to War saw section.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.