After rolling the chute into its pack I started towards the nearest light. I soon came to a road, walked about a mile to the town of Covell, IL, and telephoned a report to St. Louis. The only information I could obtain in regard to the crashed plane was from one of a group of farmers in the general store, who stated that his neighbor had heard the plane crash but could only guess at its general direction. An hour’s search proved without avail. I left instructions to place a guard over the mail in case the plane was found before I returned and went to Chicago for another ship. On arriving over Covell the next morning I found the wreck with a small crowd gathered around it, less than 500 feet back of the house where I had left my parachute the night before. The nose and the wheels had struck the ground at the same time, and after sliding along for about 75 feet it had piled up in a pasture beside a hedge fence. One wheel had come off and was standing inflated against the wall on the inside of a hog house a hundred yards further on. It had gone through two fences and the wall of the house. The wings were badly splintered, but the tubular fuselage, although badly bent in places, had held its general form even in the mail pit. The parachute from the flare was hanging on the tailskid.
There were three sacks of mail in the plane. One, a full bag from St. Louis, had been split open and some of the mail oil-soaked but legible. The other two bags were only partially full and were undamaged.
It was just about at this time, or shortly after, that I first began to think about a New York–Paris flight. But before discussing the events leading up to that flight, it might be well to say a few words about the future possibilities of commercial aviation.
In comparing aviation to other forms of transportation it should be born in mind that the flying machine has been in existence less than twenty-five years. The Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. Yet in 1927 air liners are operating regularly over long distances and under all conditions.
The first airplane was a frail machine capable of operation only in good weather. Even with the utmost care, flying in the early days of aviation was a dangerous profession at best.
Today the properly operated commercial airline compares favorably in safety with any other means of transportation.
Shipping has reached its present stage after thousands of years of development. Railroads, less than a century ago, stopped their trains at night on the grounds that operation in darkness was unsafe. Automobiles, after nearly forty years of progress, are still dependent on good roads.
The airplane, in less than quarter of a century, has taken its place among the most important methods of travel and now, where time is paramount and territory inaccessible, it stands at the head of its competition.
Development up to the present time has been largely military. The cost of aeronautical engineering and construction has been so great that commercial companies have not been able to afford to experiment with their own designs. While the airplane was still an experiment the financial returns from aeronautical projects were only too often less than the cost of operation. Consequently the early development was largely sponsored by the government, with the result that the planes were designed for use in warfare rather than for safety and economy of operation. Extreme safety, in the military machine, must be sacrificed for maneuverability. Economy of operation was replaced by military design.
Commercial aviation, in the United States, has been retarded in the past by lack of government subsidy, but the very lack of that subsidy will be one of its greatest assets in the future. A subsidized airline is organized with the subsidy as a very large consideration. The organization exists on the subsidy and its growth is regulated by the subsidy. Years will be required before the point of independence is reached and the receipts become
