The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-03-19
THINK DAY OF
 PLANE AT HAND
No Longer Experiment But Has Vast Use in
 Commerce.

There are men who believe that the l day Of the commercial airplane has arrived-that it is no longer an ex- venture. An indication of this is the serious prdposal to devote the roof of the huge new union railroad station in Chicago to a landing field for air craft in the centre of the city. At first glance it seems hardly possi- ble that the afrplane has yet reached that position of stability irf modern life, yet a review of the facts might indicate that airplane predictions have become realities almost oyer night.
 It was that way with the automo- bile They passed from a novelty that , made horses run away to a common place necessity so swiftly and easily that one scarcely noticed the trans formation.
 The development of the airplane was greatly intensified by the war and it's progress was lost sight of in the momentous issues of the great conflict. But out of the war have come hundreds of experienced pilots who have proved that the air is com paratively as safe to navigate as the seas, the steel rails or the public highways; that it is much swifter and, for certain classes of transpor- tation, most economical
 Last weeks aeronauticaI show dis closed that the manufacturing end of the business is already on a large and purely commercial basis. For the f1rsS lime in history orders were placed commercially for the delivery of air planes in large lots for sale by deal CTS or use by flying companies. It was shown that it is quite common for persons to purchase airplanes as pleasure craft and that some men own three or four of various types.
 News from British Columbia re- ports that a mining company near the coast is arranging to install a fleet of airplanes to carry its ore to the tide water-a thousands pounds to the trip-over a stretch of bad country where the construction of a railway would be most expensive.
 An airplane and a special train were chartered last week to carry a State Senator from Chicago to West Virginia, where his vote was wanted to break a tie on woman's suffrage. The Senator's wife vetoed the trip by air, but there other question about it's feasibility as a speedy space annihilator.
 The mails are being carried be tween New York and Washington and New York and Chicago and some ether points in the country with a regularity that has almost been for gotten. People in this city have grown so used to the hum of an airplane motor and the sight Of the craft in the sky that they scarcely more than glance up at them.
 Some residents along the mail route are said to have dispensed with thetl alarm clocks where the passing of thy mail carriers droning engines servl inc purpose of the proper hour.
 It is true that accidents still occul in the air. A mail carrier was burned to death in his plane in Indiana few days ago. But Major Schroeder fel five miles from above the clouds jus before that and landed with scarcely a bump. The burning to death of { man in an automobile accident is no the rarest of disasters and the hug, United States naval collier CycIop disappeared at sea without leaving trace of ship or crew.
 Not even the most optimistic of ai enthusiasts are ready to assert tha he airp1ane is as safe as a fanil phaeton on a country road, but the, do declare that it has arrived as !, everyday commercial proposition an all that remains is to watch it grow
 Safety will be attained, they say and speedily. in the same measur that it has been attained for the rail way and the ocean steamship. Th parachute is being developed to talk the place of the life preserver and ha already saved lives in unforeseen acc dents It will probably be a rule tha all passengers wear them and in cas of disaster float gently to earth, tn only danger being the impossibf1it of picking ones own landing place