Evening star., 1936-12-06
By Alice Rogers Hager.

r Ugh above a. solid bank of
~ snow clouds giant airliner
is steadily making its way
u 4 toward its home port. On
board, the hostess is helping with
coats and packages and fastening
seat belts up and down the aisle. The
cabin is warm and fresh. and there is
q calm. subdued murmur of talk.
Brilliant sunlight surrounds the plane
at its chozen altitude. and no one
seems to be bothered by the fact that
the earth is completely invisible below.
This is Winter flying as Of 1886,
United States model, and passengers
have become so used to the fact that
the bitterest enemies of man on
wings have fallen before the on
slaughts of science that they no longer
give thought to the few that are left
They ride with the same unconscious
certainty of arrival as do passengers
on express trains on the ground.
According to the authorities of Gov
ernment and the airways, they are
justified in their confidence. Old
Man Winter has largely been given
his come-uppance! Last year. in the
midst of one of his best efforts to date
the major transport companies kept
their scheduled flights operating in the
close neighborhood of 95 per cent-and
that's pretty nearly perfect in any
form of transportation. There were
even times when trains, buSses and
automobiles generally were showed in
on the ground, but the steady beat OF
the motors went on across the skies.
OF course, to be absolutely fair, there
were other times when ground facil-
ities moved and the planes stayed in
their hangers, but that is coming less
and less to be true.
AS Mr. Harold Crary, vice president
Of United Airlines, said to me recently
in Chicago: Flying has joined the
ranks of modern transportation. 1t
can no longer be considered as a
service apart The airways have be-
come great precision instruments, just
as the railroads are They operate
with machinelike fluency of motion,
from the porter who takes your lug
gage, through the crews which service
the ships before they 60 into the air,
the radio men who keep constant
track Of your flight, the pilots who
drive your plane, and so on up to the
executive organization, which plans
and directs and encourages the re-
search laboratories that develop new
and better aids to swift, safe flight.
TT IS such q little time since the
diverse of this statement was true
that many people, not used to flying
still think in terms Of the "hedge-hop.
ping" days of aircraft. Those were
the times when the mail went through
In single -motored Crates" with the
pilot grimly determined to fight 1t out
until the last possible minute before
he went over the side, if weather proved
too serious, and the idea of carry
ing passengers under such conditions
was Just not in the book. Flying wa!
a hero's job, and many are the grave!
of good fellows who cracked up in tn
Soup" because there was no radio
to. guide them out of it, and theil
craft hadn't the power to climb ul
and fly over, as the great ships do TO-
day. Significantly, this Winter, ant
for the past three or four Winters
passengers fly with the mail. Tn
hero today Is a highly efficient en-
gineer, and his flight matter of sucl
accurate planning that he becomes
little flag on a map. moved every flf
teen minutes or so to indicate hi
progress and new position.
As one airline pilot puts it: "Ther
Is no longer such a thing as Summe
and Winter weather, where flying
concerned. There is only weather Il