Evening star., 1928-12-28
FRENCH LINES OPEN
AIR MAIL SERVICE
Steal March on U. S. by
Starting System to South
American Cities.
BY WILL IRWIN.
DL WILL 1hW1Ns
By Cable to The Star and the North Ameri-
can Newspaper Alliance.

By Cable to The Star and the North Ameri-
can Newspaper Alliance.
ABOARD U. S. s. UTAH. EN- ROUTE
TO HAMPTON ROADS, Va, December
2s.-While a committee Of the Pan
American Congress is struggling to ar
range q convention to pave :s;e way for
an American airline between the United
States and the great cities of temperate
South America France has stolen @
march on us.
This Winter France began the oper-
alton of an air and water mail service
between the French capital and Men
doZa, in Western Argentina. This brings
Paris within 10 days of BuenoS Aires by
mail. Starting from Paris, land planes
carry sacks of mail to Toulouse, hydro
planes across the Mediterranean to North
Africa and from there land planes make
the next stage to the port of Dakar, in
the French possession of Senegal. At
Senegal there Is a newly established
the mail to NataI. on the coast Of
Brazil
A look at the map will show that
this Is the point where the land masses
of the two hemispheres approach each
other most closely. The distance is
about 2,200 miles. where New York is
5000 miles from Cherbourg.
Plan Of Delivery.
From Natal the line delivers and
picks up mail at Rio and several other
important Brazilian towns, then passes
on to BuenoS Aires and Mendoza. In a
short time two days will be cut on this
route by the establishment Of O hydro
plane service between Dakar and the
Cape Verde Islands on the eastern Sec
tor Of the course and between Natal
and Fernando Noronha Island on the
western.
Finally. the French promoters look
forward to the time when the airplane
will be sufficiently stabilized to make
practical q regular hop between these
two island groups, thus giving an all
air route between Paris and Mendoza
and cutting the time to four or i've
days.
The French government is subsidizinz
this project at the rate of $3,000,000 q
year. They are doing it with palpable
motives--political and the commercial
Interpretation of the richest South
propaganda, and it is working.
Friends of ours in BuenoS Aires re-
marked that whereas they used to re-
ceive American newspapers and periodi-
Gals long before those of Europe now
French publications come In far ahead
of the rest. In consequence Of this the
first comment from outside capitals on
world events will come from the Partisan
press and our views will be stale by the
time they reach Buenos Aires.
This is only one small example Of the
benefits to the French of this quickened
communication. The pity of IL from
our point of view is that with an even
break we could beat the French hands
down by landing the Washington mails.
The proposed route is from Washington
to Florida, Havana, Panama, Lima,
Santiago, Los Andes, Mendoza and
Buenos Aires. This includes IL hours
by train between Los Andes and Men
doza-the passage Of the Andes is too
high and too full OF air pockets to per-
init sure and safe flying. That would
involve night flying, but even that. the
experts say, is perfectly practical II a
little attention is paid to beacons.
Propaganda Purposes.
Subsidies for apropagands PURPOSES
are totally opposed to our American
foreign policies, But many of our
pioneer aviation men In South America
believe that with liberal contract terms
for mail carrying the project could be
AAAes~&C W pay @ACJ 90oC tA1lo OR114AOn
largely on the experiences Of the mail
contract lines in Peru, which not only
carry full cargo mail, but have con-
stantly more offers of passenger trafic
than they can handle.
Railroad trafiic down the West Coast
is slow and intermittent. Most passen-
ger tratdc is carried by ships, which
make IL miles an hour, whereas Amer
ican planes make 80 miles. I believe
such q line could do q most profitable
business over the stretch Of the Chilean
desert between africa and Alatofagasta
in the north and between Valparaiso
and Santiago in the south, where the
traf1c Is especially slow. Furthermore,
In the ajrports Of this district these
planes would pick UP Bolivian mails.
The latest report Is that the Ger
mans are now contemplating an ALTAR
Zeppelin service to BuenoS Aires. But
that is in the future.
The immediate fact Is that France Is
now much nearer by mail to all the
important cities of South America than
the United States.
Copyright. 1928. in All Countries. by the
North American Newspaper Alliance.)
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