Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-19
CLEARING HOUSE FOR AIRPORTS
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

Almost every city, town and village in
the United States which is large enough
to have a post Office has decided, within
the last few months if not earlier, that
II ought to be on the air mail system.
The business of selling aviation to
America, or making America minded.
or whatever you wish to call the activi-
ties led by Col Lindbergh. has regis
tered apparently 100 per cent on the
point of populariZing the air mail. The
civic consciousness Of the country has
more or less settled on this idea Of get
ting Main street on the aerial map. And
the Post Office Department at Wash
ington is deluged with requests, petit
tions. arguments. proposals. pleas and
propaganda from all corners of the
Nation to put our town on the air
map"
congressman are receiving demands
from the cities and towns in their dis
triCts. asking to know why they cam
not have air mail service. Many of
the cities of the country have built their
own airports and others have privately
owned landing fields. Others are willing
to provide the landing facilities if they
can get an air mail route established.
The land plants range all the way from
elaborate layouts of marked and lighted
fields, hangers, service stations, passen-
ger terminal buildings and all the TRIM
m1ngs OF an airport. to mere open fields
which used to be old man Browns pas
ture, but are now referred to locally as
HickSville Airport.
To meet the new flood Of demands for
air mail service. the Post Office Depart
ment and the Department of Com
merce nave set up joint committee
in Washington. which will hold hearings
by petitioners, and work out together
the plans for extending the service. The
combined committee was needed be-
cause while the Post Office Depart
ment handles the mail and lets the
air mail contracts, the Department of
Commerce has charge of airWayS and
airportS. their inspection and approval,
their lighting and marking. the weather
forecast service connected with COM
mercial flying. and all other govern
mental supervision of the business Of
air navigation.
The interdepartmental committee on
airWays was therefore established, at
the suggestion of President Hoover,
who had observed the coming need for
such committee while he was still
Secretary of Commerce. The commit
tee is made up of three members from
each of the two departments as fol-
lows: From the Post Office Depart
ment, w. Irving Glover, Second Assist
ant Postmaster General: Chase G.
Grove, Deputy Second Assistant Post
master General and E. B. WadSworth,
superintendent of the air mail service;
for the Department of Commerce, Will
liam P. MacCracken, Assistant Secre-
tary of Commerce for Aeronautics: G.
r. Hingsburg, chief of the airway divl-
sion. and Harry H. Blee, chief OF the
airport division.
First Steps to Take.
The opening schedule Of hearings be-
fore this new interdepartmental COM
mittee called for meetings May %, 70
and "a to consider petitions for estab-
fishing airways as follows: Pittsburgh
to Norfolk, Va, via Baltimore
and Washington; Pittsburgh to New
York. via Philadelphia Richmond
to Jacksonville, Fla, via Winston
Salem. High Point Raleigh, Greensboro.
Columbia, Augusta, Charleston and
Savannah: Pasco, Wash. to Seattle,
Tacoma. Spokane and Portland, Greg. -,
The first step in seeking an air mall
service for any community or for any
new route IS to get an airway ofilclally
established. An airway is route along
which there are the necessary airports,
markers, lights, weather service, emer-
gency landing fields and other require
ments to make a safe and practical
course for air navigation. The Depart
ment of Commerce has the authority in
law to establish airways, but 1t does
not have the funds for doing all that Is
required to make an airway. and the
communities along the line contribute
good deal.
follow an airway, so the alrWay eStap-