New Britain herald., 1928-01-14
|AIRnANE SEEN AS MAKER 0F CITIES
Nay Possibly Aid h opsaine NeV Ta1itOri6

Washington. Jan. lt MIThe air. plane has made heroes and heroines. Will 1t make cities!
 If headlines hint of the future, the faith of St. Johns and Harbor Grace. Newfoundland: Horta. In the Azores: Valencia. Ireland: Dakar. Africa: Pernambuco, Brazil: Kara chi. India: Port Darwin. Australia. and many similar seacoast towns may we'll pin their faith on the air plane.
 The railway junction of yesterday is the metropolis of today. Perhaps the airports of today will be the great cities of 1850. if the business of aerial travel and transportation continues in its forward strides.
 Surest of blessings from aviation, the National Geographic society be- lieves, is St. Johns, Newfoundland, from which and over which 50 many famous flights have been made. It was from Trepassey Bay. near St. Johns that the NC-4 de- parted on its successful flight to the Azores and Lisbon, and it was to St. Johns that Alcock and Brown flew in the same year from Clifden, Ire land.
 Although Lindbergh, Chamber lin and Byrd did rot stop at St.. Johns to buy gasoline, it is deemed likely that commercial transatlantic aircraft will use the port as the half way place on the great circle route between the United States and Eu- rope and even on the Azores route.
 Columbus pioneered the best Eu- rope-to- route for aircraft He sailed before the trade wind to ,the Azores, and commercial air planes will undoubtedly take Colum- bus southern route to avoid the N- cious westerlies farther north that beat down two planes from Europe in 1927 and forced German flier back. Favorable winds will be the making of Horta, on the Asorean island of Fayal, as an airport on the Atlantic.
 The South Atlantic extends slightly warmer hospitality to tho airplane than does the North. At- lantic. although the water gap be- tween the continents measures nearly the same 1900 miles from St. Johns to Valencia Island, Ire land. and 1880 miles from Per- nambuco to Dakar.
 But Africa pushes the Cape Verde Islands 300 miles eff coast to help the airmen, and South America reaches out with Fernando Noron- ha, 300 miles northeast of Pernam- buco. Then there is St. Paul Is- land. dot of land midway between the continents and a possible fu- ture emergency station. So Dakar and Pernambuco are likely to be airports of 1850.
 The airplane as city maker is functioning already in some places. Girardot, Colombia. is thriving town today because seaplane serv- ice up the Magdalena river, abbre- viating the long, racking trip from Barranquilla on the coast to Bogo- la, the capital, ends at the Girar- dot hangars
 Bona, near the Congo mouth fin Africa, has an airplane future by virtue of Belgian Colonial service which shortens the tropical jour- ney to Elizabethville a whole month. Yesterday Kisumu was a British outpost on Lake Victoria in mid-Africa. Today it is the termi- nus of the air service from Khar- tum-tomorrow. perhaps, the air metropolis of Africa.
 Gaza in the Palestine and Bag dad in Mesapotamia see the glory of caravan days returning as the express drops down from the skies. Karachi, already a port and rail- head, is the natural air gate of In- dia for planes which go up the In- dus river to Delhi. down the Ganges to Calcutta and on to Singapore and Australia.
 Four flights in recent years have blazed air trails and cities of the future: The Army round-the-w world