, 1925-01-19

tK6IE Low Ihl4uL6rs OLltIb htio
pulling out as punctuaIly and with
as littlo fuss as the departure OF the
Twentieth Century from New York
CO IN. 'olympihn' from Chicago.
Trevelers were having their tickets
punched for their morning flights 20
Amsterdam with the same bored
expressions that you SEQ on the
faces Of commuters waiting inipa-
tlontly for the 5:15 TO whisk them
across Long Island TO Great Neck.
or whiio waiting for the ferry to
take them across San Francisco bay
10 Oakland
Never having flown across the
English channel before we decided
TO follow these regular planes that
carry commuters from Paris to Lon
don. At II o'clock. exactly to the
tick. two French air liners left lie
Bourget. Back in the year 1865 they
say It took William the Conaueror a
year TO march his forces to the
shore on the French side OF the
English channel, prepare his fleet,
and then effect n landing in the
British Isles. Il took us Just three
hours and three minutes to fly over
from Paris to London. And. as ev-
erybody knows, this is a daily. COM
monplace routine experience for
many people. In fact. we were con
siderably delayed by head winds.
Air Service No Thrill.
"Ths airdome at lie Bourget had
been specially decorated in our
honor. Just as. say the union station
in Denver. Colo. might be decorat-
ed on the occasion OF the passing
through OF the presidential train.
Col. de Goys. chief Of staff to the
und~ersecretary for aviation. Mai.
Carlyle Walsh from the American
embassy. and a number OF other
prominent French and foreign Of
flcials were there TO see us off. A
few moments before time for depar-
ture a regular crew belonging to
tho airdome rolled back the doors
Of the hangers and trundled our
planes out into the open as non
chalantly as the brakemen on the
3. & O.. might ahunt a few cars
around. We stepped into our cock
pits. warmed up our engines a bit,
and then Col, de Goys and the others
shouted 'Good-byn
no, not good.by; Just au revoir.'
we replied.
AS the regular Paristo-London
planes left the ground packed with
Commuters, Smith shouted:
" All right, boys. we're off
"A moment later and we were in
the air on our way to Trafalgar
square.
"A Pathe camereman was flyign
alongside us in his own plane. He
was hoping to grind off a few me-
ters OF celiuioid as we crossed the
channel. Three French military
planes also flew with us for 40 miles
as an escort of honor.
High Over Clouds.
ut was a rather hszy day, and be
fore Paris had dropped out of sight
we had encountered a great cloud
bank. We kept climbing in order TO
get above 1t. All the rest OF the way
wo flew at an altitude OF about 1000
feet, For nearly an hour we were
above a sea of clouds that cut us
off from the world below. It seem.
ID as though we were somewhere
far out in space. sailing around n
planet as strange to us as though
we were n meteor whizzing from
one solar system TO another.
III It hadn't been for the Amer
lean tourists riding in the luxurious,
inclosed cars OF the commercial
plane speeding alongside us we
would have had nothing at all to re
mind us Of our connection with
Gods footstooi.' The tourists kept
waving NJ US. and Jack. who is an
adept at aerial sign language by
meanH OF expressive gestures kept
mp IA running conversation with a
hobbcd haired 'flappcr' in the
French express plane ao we bound
ed from one cloud peak TO another.
A. when We landed outside London
wo discovered that all tho passen-
gers on board tho two commercial
planes We had followed were Ameri-
cans. Then we made a still more
startling discover Although com.
merclal aviation has advanced far
moro rapidly in Europe than In our