The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-05-05
ELLIS SEES AIR PLAY PART IN
 DEVELOP PMENT
Aviation Providing Freight ing and Passenger Serv-
 ice Before Impossible

starting this week is just another step in a program that should with in a few brief years link Alaska with all the world, according tc Bob Ellis of the Pacific Alaska Airways.
 Ellis was questioned by The Elm pire upon his ideas of how much and how quickly aviation might speed the development of Alaska He said that aviation freightine is certain to increase rapidly IT the Territory, but that in addition to that he expected to see Alaska on one of the main routes oi around -the-world air pa sse n g e service very probably within five years" and that such service would be certain to speed the growth of the Alaska cities thai are selected as depots for sucf service.
 of course everyone knows that the air link from Seattle to Ju- neau is inevitable in the near fu- ture. After that it is largely 6 matter of international arrange ments for landing stations that will determine how quickly air lines to the Orient will be established
 The present ocean route tt China requires such long overtime water hops that the fuel capacity of the planes seriously cuts dowr their pay load, and the result is that flying boats of the China Clipper type, while tremendously more costly and more expensive tC operate then smaller planes, do not have correspondingly large carrying capacity.
 Cheaper Planes
 Tt is entirely practical with the present state of aviation develop ment to use comparatively inex- pensive planes, say about $30,00C each, and maintain a fast and handy service to Japan and China by way of Alaska and Siberia. The equipment is available today and if arrangements were completed with the Japanese and Siberian governments the service could be established in short order" MT. Ellis said that perfection of air travel in Alaska will come with the completion of all desired landing fields, and the installation of new radio equipment that has been perfected, radio beam stations to control landing ships while fly ing blind in the thickest kind of fog.
 The equipment has been proven by tests at Newark, New Jersey, he said ''The Department of Con- merce supervised the tests, which were made when the entire Atlantic seaboard was covered with a fog that was recorded as reducing visi- bility to zero, and when not an airplane was off the ground.
 Direction Beams
 "A plane equipped for utilizing the landing beam, in manner similar to which most planes now use direction beams, took off from the field at Washington, D. o. flew on direction beam until in the vicinity of the Newark Field Approaching the field the plane, to keep in the range of the landing beam, was started downward at an easy gliding angle. After certain distance it came in range of a very low power radio signal, which told the operator that he was at the outer boundary of the landing field In a few seconds he was through the range of this signal and came into the range of second low power signal, which again identi- fled his location as certain part of the field, and continued at the same angle through third such signal, finally coming to land ing in the midst of the field that was so densely covered with fog that he had to find his way to the hangar by signals from the crew."
 Ellis declared that when Alaska's s major. fields have been equipped with landing beams, the problem of flying through any kind of visi- bility will have been completely solved, and few obstacles would remain to the development of air transportation in Alaska.