The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-04-13
AEROPLANE WILL
 co INTO PLACES :UNvISlTEDBE,MAC

x Perhaps the greatest service of the passenger aeroplane; is, that it will make accessible parts of the world that are now little used. There are plenty of places where railroads can- not be built because of the great cost, and because there is not enough traf- fic to justify them.
 "This brings me to the use of the aeroplane for transporting freight. The present type of machine will nev- CT supp1ant the freight car, and can not foresee that it will ever be used for carrying. coal. or wheat. But in transporting special small packages, precious freight, it will be extremely useful. Here again we shall penetrate sections where the railroad cannot carry us. There are thousands of such places in the west, in South America, in Africa. The aeroplane will prob ably be one of the most potent agen- 'cies in the development of Alaska, for here we have an, extremely rich coun- try where railroads are difficult and extremely expensive to build. can best illustrate this by special in, stance There is 8 certain port in Alaska back of which, about sixteen
 
 problem of the company which works these mines is to get supplies to its men and to get the concentrate back to tide-water. The mines are shut off from thp port by two ranges of mountains four thousand feet high, it is, inconceivable that a. railroad should ever be built across the ob- structions. Supplies are sent by a cir cuitous route which takes three days to make in the summer time; in win ter it cannot be made at all. The company is now completing plans to install an. ,aeroplane service. In this way the workmen can easily sail over the mountainous barriers and reach the miners in an hour. They can thus carry supplies to the workmen and bring back the concentrate. The money Saved will be an important item; \then great point, however, is that the mines, with all their prec- ious output, can be- successively work ed for the first time. There are thou sands of places in Alaska, and else- where, where precisely the same situ- ation exists. In such places; the fly machine will perform much work now done by pack-horse and mule, and open up sections where even the mule is useless for transit purposes. One of the greatest obstacles to trans portation in Alaska are certain large areas of "nigger- -heads'' flat stretches resembling swamps, with a growth similar to- cabbage heads, which man nor beast can negotiate, and across which neither railroads nor highways can be built. These obstruc- tions, of course, will present no diff cu1ty to the aerop1ane.
 T do not think it will supplant the steamship and the railroad as mail carrier, because it will be too expen- sive, It would take a very large num- Der of flying-machines, perhaps a hundred, to carry as much mail as we now get in mail-car. You can easily figure how this would increase the expense. It will have the same advantage in carrying mails as in carrying passengers, and that is speed. This statement also needs some quali-, fication, for, when it comes to quick communication, the aeroplane can never supp1ant the telegraph and the telephone. But we shall probably have a special rapid mail service by aerop1ane, for which we shall pay higher price and buy special stamp.