Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-09-11
Flying in Europe Safe and Simple

pass through an exit and are conducted to
motor by attendant
AS our plane reached Berlin on its flight
from Paris the wheels touched the ground at
almost the exact second of the fight schedule
The swift, orderly handling Of traffic and con.
duct Of passengers went forward with military
precision. There was an exchange Of salutes
a clicking of heels and short, sharp commands
as subordinates appeared
Other planes were arriving and departing
There was no confusion. officials and attend.
ants seemed perfectly mechanical as the
engines which drove the planes.
X X X X
The morning after our arrival in Berlin we
visited the offices of the Deutsche Luft Hansa
System. The company owns and occupies a
luxurious modern Office building.
It's system Is complete, spderke network
covering virtually all Europe, radiating from
Berlin to Moscow. Stockholm, Hamburg. Am
sterdam, Paris, London, Vienna, Rome. Koenigs-
berg, Petrograd, Basic, Geneva and Madrid
The planes for the most part are Junkers, all
metal planes, Fokker monoplanes and planes of
the Dornier Wal and Rohrbach types. The
Albatross is virtually the only biplane in use in
Germany.
The Luft Hansa ships are flying about IS 900
miles day. They consume $4,000 gallons of
gasoline daily. .
In our air tour of Germany we traversed
every known terrain. through all weather. We
looked down on Hamburg, Stettin. Munich,
Frankfort, innsbruck Strasbourg, Nuren
burg-all of Germany.
doubt If any American train service could
have taken us the same distance with such
unfailing punctuality. The big ships rode un.
waveringly through storms; radio direction
finders steered thom unerringy through fog
and night; compasses and charts seemed in
fallible as did pilots and mechanicians working
as impersonally as the instruments under their
hands.
Noise is being rapidly choked to minimum,
and we talked easily across the aisle of the
luxurious Women were fitting about here
and there shopping visiting, and village
bankers were getting their first acquaintance
with big cities and big finance.
There was on every hand evidence of new
German unity coming out of this comminglng
of isolated peoples. am no Utopian, but
see in all this far advance toward European
and possibly world unity as well.
Germany was limited by the Versailles
treaty to the construction of commercial air.
planes, and for this reason and through eco.
nomic necessity has taken the lead in com.
mercial flying. leaving all competitors far in
the rear. In France and England the emphasis
still is on the subsidized government routes to
the colonies.
France has two great systems. One reaches
from Paris to Prague, to Constantinople and
the Near East. the other from Paris to- Berlin
and Moscow, alternating daily with the Luft
Hansa. Another French colonial line crosses
the Mediterranean, via Toulouse, Casablanca
and down the west coast of Africa to Dakar.
Two factors have combined to stay the de.
velopment of aviation within Great Britain
one the perfection of the train service in an
area of congested population, the other the
prevalence of fog.
However, the Imperial Always has brought
It's air liners to high state Of perfection in
passenger and mail traffic with the continent,