On the other hand, an airline organized without regard to an external income is in a position to expand along with the demands for service. If the traffic becomes great enough to require more or bigger planes, a larger profit ensues, instead of an increased subsidy being required or the fare being raised to hold down the demand.
The airplane has now advanced to the stage where the demands of commerce are sufficient to warrant the building of planes without regard to military usefulness. And with the advent of the purely commercial airplane comes an economy of operation which places operating organizations on a sound financial basis.
Undoubtedly in a few years the United States will be covered with a network of passenger, mail and express lines.
Transatlantic service is still in the future. Extensive research and careful study will be required before any regular schedule between America and Europe can be maintained. Multi-motored flying boats with stations along the route will eventually make transoceanic airlines practical but their development must be based on a solid foundation of experience and equipment.
IX
San Diego–St. Louis–New York
The transatlantic nonstop flight between New York and Paris was first brought into public consideration by Raymond Orteig who, in 1919, issued a challenge to the Aeronautical world by offering a prize of $25,000 to the first successful entrant. Details of the flight were placed in the hands of the National Aeronautic Association and a committee was appointed to form and administer the rules of the undertaking.
I first considered the possibility of the New York–Paris flight while flying the mail one night in the fall of 1926. Several facts soon became outstanding. The foremost was that with the modern radial air-cooled motor, high lift airfoils, and lightened construction, it would not only be possible to reach Paris but, under normal conditions, to land with a large reserve of fuel and have a high factor of safety throughout the entire trip as well.
I found that there were a number of public spirited men in St. Louis sufficiently interested in aviation to finance such a project, and in December 1926 I made a trip to New York to obtain information concerning planes, motors, and other details connected with the undertaking.
In connection with any important flight there are a number of questions which must be decided at the start, among the most important of which are the type of plane and the number of motors to be used. A monoplane, although just coming into general use in the United States, is much more efficient than a biplane for certain purposes due to the lack of interference between wings, and consequently can carry a greater load per square foot of surface at a higher speed. A single motored plane, while it is more liable to forced landings than one with three motors, has much less head resistance and consequently a greater cruising range. Also there is three times the chance of motor failure with a tri-motored ship, for the failure of one motor during the first part of the flight, although it would not cause a forced landing, would at least necessitate dropping part of the fuel and returning for another start.
The reliability of the modern air-cooled radial engine is so great that the chances of an immediate forced landing due to motor failure with a single motor, would in my opinion, be more than counterbalanced by the longer cruising range and consequent ability to reach the objective in the face of unfavorable conditions.
After careful investigation I decided that a single motored monoplane was, for my purpose, the type most suited to a long distance flight, and after two more trips to the east coast and several conferences in St. Louis, an order was placed with the Ryan Airlines of San Diego, California, on February 28, 1927, for a plane equipped with a Wright Whirlwind J5-C 200 hp radial air-cooled motor and Pioneer navigating instruments including the Earth Inductor Compass.
I went to San Diego to place the order and remained in California during the entire construction of the plane.
The personnel of the Ryan Airlines at once caught the spirit of the undertaking, and during the two months of construction the organization labored as it never had before. Day and night, seven days a week, the structure grew from a few lengths of steel tubing to one of the most efficient planes that has ever taken the air. During this time it was not unusual for the men to work twenty-four hours without rest, and on one occasion Donald Hall, the Chief Engineer, was over his drafting table for thirty-six hours.
I spent the greater part of the construction period working out the details of navigation and plotting the course, with its headings and variations, on the maps and charts. After working out the track on the gnomonic and Mercators charts, I checked over the entire distance from New York to Paris with the nautical tables. The flight from San Diego to St. Louis and from St. Louis to New York was comparatively simple, and I took the courses directly from the state maps.
From New York to Paris I worked out a great circle, changing course every hundred miles or approximately every hour. I had decided to replace the weight of a navigator with extra fuel, and this gave me about three hundred miles additional range. Although the total distance was 3,610 miles, the water gap between Newfoundland and Ireland was only about 1,850 miles, and under normal conditions I could have arrived on the coast of Europe over three hundred miles off of my course and still have had enough fuel remaining to reach Paris; or I might have struck the coastline as far north as Northern Scandinavia, or as far south as Southern Spain and landed without danger to myself or the plane, even though I had not reached my destination. With these facts in view, I believed the additional reserve of fuel to be more important on this flight
