Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-05-10
ROCK ISLAND SHOULD BE ONE OF
FIRST TO PROVIDE LANDING FOR
AIRPLANES, RICKENBACKER SAYS

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, in
discussing his coming to Rock Is
land Tuesday to attend the dinner
of the Tri-City Automobile Trade
association at the Rock Island club
and to address an audience at the
Spencer Square theatre under aus
pieces of Amoo grotto, pointed out
that Rock Island should be one of
the first cities to provide a suita-
BILE landing place for airplanes, the
same as was advocated in The Ar
gus some weeks ago.
The Chamber of Commerce has
discussed the proposition of an
airplane landing, and it is under
stood a committee was appointed
for the purpose of making an in
vestigation along the lines Of Sc
curing suitable site.
Rock Island needs an ,airplane
landing and should be one of the
first cities to indicate il clearly
understands what the future of
aircraft will bring" Captain Rick
! enbacker said.
1T is my firm belief that if ev-
cry city in America would lend its
whole-hearted cooperation toward
the future welfare of the air ser
vice, and by their cooperation suf-
ficient land was offered to estab-
lish a landing field near each of
the cities. to- be supported and
maintained by each city. thus COM
pleting a chain of cities in Amer
lea, all vitality interested in air
craft, individuals owning aircraft
would logically become local ben
eficiaries for. any aircraft project
and they would stimulate local in
terest by landing at these cities
and thus create a public demand
for national air service.
added to this he went on, ain
order to make the establishment
of an air line a success it de-
serves to- be, it must have govern
ment support. Now that the war
is over, the government should be
willing to support those manufac-
turers who have built up an or
ganization which cannot be con-
tinued without the moral and
financial support of our govern
ment. Until that time comes, when
aviation is on a sound footing, or
in other words becomes a COM
self-supporting. the training of eX-
pert pilots will have to be a mat
ter for the concern of the individ-
ual, but unless the experimental
departments of these different
manufacturers are maintained so
that the brains of the engineers
developed during our war period
have The opportunity of expanding
and creating what might be termed
perfect airplane-unless this
succession of thought Is carried
on and these geniuses supported,
we will not be able in another
year or two to say that we. the
creators and inventors of aero
planes. can manufacture just as
good an apparatus as our Euro
pean allies. For once this success
sion of thought is broken and
these manufacturers turn their eff
forts in another direction. it would
be only a matter of six months
time when we would again be in
pre-war days as far as the devel-
opment of airplanes is concerned.
Il am convinced" he continued,
that the government should ap-
propriate a given sum each year
for carrying on experimental
work. at the same time develop
ing postal aero service which
would create a demand for
standard type of machine such as
We have been building and could
be put on production basis.
These two organizations should be
kept separate, but the production
organization should be sufficiently
flexible to permit a new model per-
fected by the experimental depart
ment to be taken over and put
into production in very short