The Cordova daily times., 1922-10-24
POSTAL MAP
 GROWS SMALL
 BY AIR LINES

DETROIT, Mich, Oct. 24-HOw the postal map of the United States has shrunk from the days of the stage coach to the present era of the air plane was described at the First Ma tional Air Institute held here last week, by Colonel Paul Henderson, 1 second assistant postmaster general who stated that, with night flying from Chicago to Cheyenne, for which arrangements are being made, the continent will be spanned in 28 to 30 hours. The Air Institute was held l held under the auspices of the De- 1 troit Aviation Society, preliminary to the National Airplane races and Aero Congress at Selfridge Field, Mt. Clem ems, near here. It was participated in by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America, American So- ciety of Mechanical Engineers and Society of Automotive Engineers and members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, American Bar Association and National Air craft Underwriters Association.
 Colonel Henderson's subject was "The Air Mail" He said, in part Will Not Replace Other Transport q do not think that we should consider the airplane as an instru- | ment of travel destined to replace either the automobile or the railway i train. I think that we should view the airplane as offering to civilza- ton an entirely new type of trans portation.
 "The point of view of the Post Office Department is that the people of the country are entitled to and should be given full advantage of ad- ditional mail when such advantage is offered as it is now in the shape of improved airplanes.
 Tells of Air Mail Records
 "The Air Mail Service is limited by law to one transcOntinental route from New York to San Francisco This route is 2,68O miles in length making a round trip of 5,360 miles This round trip is covered each day. except Sundays and holidays, of the year. This necessitates an annual schedule flying on the part of our force of approximately 1,S00000 miles, The Eastern terminus of our route is Mineola, Long Island; the Western terminus, Presidio, San Francisco.
 Our service at the present time consists of a relay advance of mail from New York across the continent and vice versa That is to say, we do not take any particular mail for complete trip across the continent with the net result that we advance approximately 12,000 pounds of first-c1ass letter mail each day by a matter of some three or four hours. It should be noted that this three to four hour advance may in certain instances mean a real advance of 15 to IS hours, inasmuch as it may mean the delivery of the mail to con- signee late in the evening, which might otherwise have not been de- livered until the following morning.
 "We are now using remOdeled De Haviland planes, which we procure free of charge from the Army. As of this date we have 70 such planes in flying conditions.
 Army Liberty Motors Employed
 eve use Liberty motors, also pro- cured without charge from the Army. Our experience has shown us that at the end of 100 hours flying service 1t is necessary to overhaul each Liberty motor.
 "From July 16, 1921, until Septem- Der ', 1922, we flew approximately 2.OOO,OO0 miles without a fatal acci- dent. During the fiscal year ending June, 3O 1922, we maintained an effic- iency of 94.39 per cent.
 "On September 16 we finished ten consecutive weeks of flying, the en- tire transcontinental route, with 100 per cent efficiency; that is to say during those weeks each of Our scheduled trips was started and fin ished exactly on schedule time. There are employed in the Air Mail Service 390 people, of whom 39