Popular Mechanics 1923-11: Vol 40 Iss 5

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—=» — ‘¢ Popular Mechanics Magazine REGISTERED IN U. S. PATENT OFFICE WRITTEN SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND IT Vol. 40 NOVEMBER, 1923 No. 5 Blazing a Trail with the Night Air Mail Across Nation in Twenty-Six Hours ’*Planes in Great Transcontinental Flights Between New York and San Francisco Mark New Era in the History of Aviation N whirring through 2,680 space between the Pacific and Atlantic of unqualified success. Favored by a strong westward wind, the first plane took off oceans in just a little more than 26 hours, from Hempstead, N. Y., at 11:00 a United States Air Mail planes have m., the morning of not only opened up a new era in the history of aviation, but have narrowed the map of a con- tinent beyond the utmost dreams of a scant generation agi From the foot of Lake Michigan to the southeast cor- ner of Wyoming, a distance of about of 2000 A. D.” rO. far outstripped EVEN THE VISION OF GENIUS IS ECLIPSED BY FACT HEN, with the prophetic vision af Kipling wrote “With the Night Mail,” in 1909, he labeled it “A Story But so rapid has been the progress of science and industry, that fact has romance, and the feat the 21st of August, drifted southward over 247 miles of continuous moun- tains where there are not more than five fields available in case of forced landings, to Bell- which fonte, Pa. Well was only a dream 14 years ago is the reality ahead of schedule, of today, as proved in the recent night flights of the post-office airplanes when letters were carried between New York and San Francisco in just a little over 26 hours.—Editor’s Note. the mail was car- ried into Cleveland, over Bryan, Ohio, and on to Checker 885 miles, the flights were made at night, the pilots being guided across the cloud- flecked highways of the heavens by a More gleaming row of giant beacons. powerful than millions of candles, the pillars of light represented the first attempt to illuminate the airways for the use of man, in a shimmering ribbon winding like a gigantic glow-worm. Although the weather conditions during the first flights were bad, the planes being delayed for several hours one night by a fog so thick that the pilots could scarcely see their propellers, not a single mishap marred the experimerit, on which the eves of the entire world were focused. Gov- ernment officials an- nounced afterwards that | the four-day test was an —/ —s Electrically Lighted Wind Indicator for Landing Fields That Clearly Indicates to the Ap- proaching Pilot the Direction of the Breeze board field, just out side of Chicago, shortly before dusk. Quickly the pouches were transterred to another waiting plane and packed away as closely as sardines in the long underbod whose sweeping curves yellow birch glistened in t! slight rain that had begun to fall. Listed as No. 20/, the huge De Haviland measured 30 feet from the tip of its tail to the steel shod propeller blades, a tireless rival to dispute tl eagle’s flight across moun tain, plain, or valley. Across the slender fuss lage stretched two sets of silver wings, 42 feet, over- all. Back of them, and just behind the mail compart ment, was the pilot’s cock pit with control lever, rud- der bar, stabilizer wheel, spark and throttle adjust