Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-07-15
The Significance of Air Mail
Betyeen Atlanta and Gotham,
r~ HE official call for bids for an air
mail service between Atlanta and

~ HE official call for bids for an air
mail service between Atlanta and
N New York, by way of Columbia,
Raleigh and Washington, brings within nall
ing distance of ones work-a-day magma
ton an event which hitherto has haunted
the outlying deep of dreams. Some day, we
have been saying, "our letters of urgent I'M
portance will be sent and received by fleet
Mercurites of the sky" But we scarcely ex-
pected the wonder so soon, and above our
own housetOps.
According to the Postal Departments
specifications, the new service must begln
not later than November the 18th, next,
must comprise at least three hundred ana
six round trips a year and be prepared to
carry fifteen hundred pounds of mail on
each trip. Leaving New York City at
a. m eastern time) the mail plane will
reach Washington at 9:40, Raleigh at 1:1O
o. m. Columbia at 1855 and Atlanta at
6:55 This schedule allows for stay OF
twenty minutes at each stop, and cuts the
railway time in half. On the northbound
flight, planes will leave Atlanta at $50
a. M, reach Washington at 225 p. m,
and descend at New York just three hours
later. Although the air-route postage is
not yet decided upon, it is expected to be
a rate that will give the time-saving
practical appeal to business correspondents.
The Atlanta-New York line is one of
several which the Government is moving
definitely to establish, bids having been
asked for like service between Cleveland
and Detroit, Pittsburg and st. Louis, and
New York and Chicago.
These cheering evidences of an aroused
aeronautic interest in the United States,
where such enterprises have Jagged sorely
of late, are reinforced by the plans of four
Army airmen for a pioneer flight from
New York to Nome, Alaska. This exploit,
whose launching is set for the current
aviation more notable than the great trans
continental flight of recent seasons. Not
only the formidable distance-eight thou
sand, nine hundred and sixty miles-but
also the stormful hazards of the unex-
plored way will make the adventure an OBJ
ject of worldwide and historic interest.
1.-THE vast stretches of the Canadian Rock
ies," we are reminded, ''and the wilder
ness of the interior of Alaska, have never
before been the field for similar test
of skill and daring. The difficulties to be
overcome are, in real sense, of the same
frontiersmen Of the eighteenth and early
Nineteenth centuries-the same perils that
come to those who venture into inn
perfectly known Wilderness"
A particularly useful result of the flight,
if it is successful will be it's demonstra-
ton of the feasibility of air postal service
between Alaska and the States The Army
ayiators expect to compass the nearly nine
thousand miles from New York to Nome
in fifteen days. including stops for rest
and ordinary repairs. This will represent
reduction Of at least fortnight in the time
required to reach Alaskan centers from
most points in this country by present
means of communication. What this gain,
when wrought into mail deliveries, will
mean to the increasing communities of
Americans who are building and produc
ing in that farthest northland of our flag,
is easily imagined.
In promoting such interests the Army is
doing work of a substantial as well as
splendid nature. Mans future lies largely
in the air, and they who chart the aerial
ocean and bring it's wondrous uses into
our daily life are leaders in deed and
truth.