(5 of 5)
Mr. McAdoo has also in contemplation an Atlantic coastal line: New York-Washington-Richmond-Raleigh-Columbia-Augusta-Savannah-Jacksonville''-Miami. The cities between Washington and Jacksonville are not yet on even an air mail line. Pitcairn Aviation's mail planes go slightly west, through Atlanta.
Why Mr. McAdoo is just now cake-walking into aviation, he explained last week: "We're in a new era now. The rail-road boys must hustle to keep up. I ought to know." (He was War director of U. S. railways, 1917-19).
Mrs. McAdoo (née Eleanor Randolph Wilson) absolutely refuses to fly. Last week she sailed for Europe. Her "Mac" will follow in a month, after he sets up Southern Skylines' capital structure.
In Canada
Winnipeg last week conducted an aviation meet and aircraft exhibition. It was the biggest, most important air event of Canada's year, surpassing in extent and influence Montreal's exhibition, earlier in May. More than 70 planes showed at Winnipeg. Many competed in races and stunts. They carried hundreds of passengers. Makes included: de Havilland Moth, Avro Avian, Huff Daland, Lockheed Vega, American Eagle, Fokker, Junkers, Cessna, Fairchild, Ford, Waco, Hamilton, Douglas, Laird, Ryan, Travel Air, Monocoupe, Curtiss Robin.
Instigator of the Winnipeg meet & show was the Winnipeg Flying Club. It is one of 16 local Canadian clubs, whose members have flown approximately 10,000 hours since 1927, when the Canadian Department of National Defence first started to foster them. The Government gives planes, engines and cash to clubs which provide their own flying fields, hire an instructor and air engineer, and have at least 30 members prepared to qualify as pilots (not less than ten must already be qualified). For every member who qualifies, the flying club gets $100 more. And if the club later buys planes on its own, the Government matches its purchases plane for plane.**
*The Leviathan on its next westward crossing of the Atlantic will experiment with an analogous device to pick up and despatch mail to shore. On a new platform above the poop deck a sack of mail will be laid. A plane with a steel ball hanging by a rope will pass over the ship, dragging the ball across the platform. The ball will engage the sack, which the plane will draw into its fuselage, as she flies to land.
*Manhattan air men last week reported that a Mid-Continent Air Express was being organized to operate between Chicago and New Orleans. They said that President Harris M. Hanshue of Fokker Aircraft Corp. was back of the project; also Chairman James Talbot of Richfield Oil Co., Western Air Express and Fokker. Supposedly Mid-Continent would tie up with Western and Standard Air Lines.
†For other competitive lines, see map and timetable in TIME, May 27.
**England has a similar sponsoring system.