Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-10
s Of the Air Undertake Task of Linking the Americas
From Panama to the Horn, From Rocky Coast of Chile t. Rio and Buenos
Aires a Network of Air Lanes Soon Will Gross South America and
Connect With Lines From the United States.

, America-across country with pack an.
finals or upon slow steamers courS1r1e
her endless rivers. So the airplane has
come as an indispensable factor in the
social and economic scheme Of things.
European capital was quick to fore
see this, and since the war has used the
promotion of South American air routes
to a very considerable extent as an n
tering wedge with which to regain trade
lost to North America during the con-
fict. The advantage lies not in the
transportation of goods by air, but In
favorable contacts and in the reciprocal
value of a real service rendered. The
United States has been tardy in Selling
a similar advantage, but in the last year
or two has begun to offer competition to
European aviation companies. The
| Miami-Panama air mail contract be-
tween our Government and n Pan
American Always provides routes which
sweep the entire block of Central Amer
lean republics from Yucatan to the
Canal.
An augury of the success of this line
may be found in the traffic of that
conpany's West Indian route to Cuba,
Haiti, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico,
opened a few weeks earlier. Within two
weeks after the first plane made the
fight six planes a day were booked
nearly two weeks ahead. Here again
the element of time rather than dis
lance is conquered. .
The same company has under mail
contract and in process Of organization
extension routes from both Panama and
the West Indies along the northern
coast of South America as far south as
Dutch Guiana.
From Panama the route lies through
| thu CT rifinc nf Cnlnrnhf0 and UnnQ-
zuela to Port of Spain, Trinidad, where
it is joined by the West Indian route,
swinging southwark from Porto Rico
through Gaudeloupe and Martinique
of the Windwards and touching at
Georgetown, in British Guiana. The
company expects to place its l0-passen-
ger amphibians in operation over these
routes soon.
D APIDLY the development of air
~ transportation is leaping along both
the east and the west coasts. Routes
along the great shoulder of Brazil have
been surveyed through Para, Maranhao
and Natal to Pernambuco, where they
Join the most %pretentious of all interna-
| tional air routes so far undertaken-the
line of the Letecoere Co., which has the
Aero Postale contract of France, and
| ultimately is to connect Paris and
Buenos Aires.
Already Letecoere planes are operat-
ing regularly from Toulouse to Dakar,
in Senegal, West Africa, whence mail
and cargo are carried by fast ships to
Pernambuco. From Pernambuco to Rio
de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and
| Buenos Aires air operations are still in
an experimental stage, but apparently
completely certain of success as soon as
landing fields and bases of supply have
been sufficiently developed.
Letecoere plans presently to complete
the air link by substitution OF rams
| atlantic planes for steamship service,
using the Cape Verde Islands and
islands off the coast of Brazil as aids
TO spanning the narrowest part of the
Atlantic, between the westernmost pro-
lection of Africa and the eaSternmost
point of South America.
It is likely. however, that the quicker
and more practical route from the
United States to the Argentine and
Brazil lies along the western rather
than the eastern coast of South
America. It is also likely, judging from
the present advancement of aviation
on the two coasts, that the west coast
route will be the first completed.
A glance at a map OF the Two
Americas will show at once the saving
in distance by a route from the east
coast al North America to the west