Evening star., 1937-07-11
PLANES BECOME
BOON TO MANKIND
Uncle Sam Takes to Air to
Benefit Citizens by Aerial
Research.
~ the Associated Press.

~ the Associated Press.
Chasing bugs Bearing hurricane
warnings to fishermen. Sprinkling
poison dust. Searching for Illicit dis
tilleries. Mapping farms.
These are a few of the many uses
10 which airplanes are being put by
the Federal Government. They are
not 50 we'll known nor so spectacular
~ those to which military planes
sre put. But q lot of people will argue
about their utility.
Scores of Government agencies are
Nsing blimps autogyros and land and
SEA planes for routine activity.
The aircraft is leased from private
owners, borrowed from the Army and
Navy or owned outright by the bureau
using it.
The Coast Guard makes frequent
use Of It's 46 planes. They zoom up
and down the Atlantic Coast. drop
ping hurricane warnings on floating
block messages to small fishing boats
at sea or crying storm admonitions
through loud speakers to tiny, isolated
coast settlements.
Rescuers and Policemen.
The Coast Guard directs from the
Air search for lost craft and bodies
OF the drowned. 1t rescues amateur
yachtsmen and distressed fishermen
from boiling seas, spots Illicit distiller-
les for the alcohol tax unit gives the
Agriculture Department weather in
formation, flies with food and medi-
cine to ice-locked islands, takes ply
sicians to those i'll at sea and brings
sick persons, usually from small
freighters, to land.
The Agriculture Department regu-
larly resorts to planes in its fight
against plant disease The Bureau
OF Entomology and Plant Quaran-
tine owns six autogyros for scouting.
Because these planes fly slowly and
low, Federal plant doctors are able
to survey large forest and crop areas
In quest OF infected growths.
The bureau is Waging a fight from
the air against Dutch elm diseases,
Its agents flying low over tree tops
spotting diseased trees and signaling
The flying windmills" also are used
to scout through the South for citrus
canker, disease usually found in
abandoned groves or in isolated trees
which were planted by bird carried
seeds
Take Insect Census.
Regularly the bureau sends it's sci
entlsts up to take census of in
sects" and study their movements bv
capturing the bugs on fiy-paper traps
trailed from the planes. Plant dis
ease spores are taken from the upper
ar on small glass smear plates.
Through use of the plane the bu-
feau developed the process of COM
batting plant maladies and insects bv
sprlnkllng poison dust from the air
upon crops and orchards.
The Forest Service detects and
nights forest fires from the air, hiring
private planes for its work as an aux
iliary to its fixed ground lookouts
especially when visibility is low or
during storms.
Boss observers watch the behavior
OF flres from the air and direct ground
crews by radio or written messages
dropped from the plane
seventy landing fields in national
Forest areas are used for emergencies
Men and supplies are flown to fire
zones. In isolated areas, food and
supplies, everything from shovels and
canned soup to crates of eggs. are
dropped by parachutes to fighters
A new experiment is being made to
determine If planes can retard remote
and lncipient fires until ground crews
arrive. Experiments with dropping
water, chemicals and explosives are
being conducted in the Los Padres
Forest area of California.
Shadow Fighting.
The service also is experimenting
Jointly with the Navy on plan to aio
nre fighters by spreading smoke
screens from planes above the f1re
keeping the fire under a shadow and
thus keep temperature down and hu-
midity up.
Periodic inventories of wild game
and migratory water fowl are made
from aerial perches by the Biological
Survey with naval, Coast Guard and
leased private planes. Blimps are
USED IN the Potomac River Basin and
IN California and Florida. A weekly
Summer count of water fowl in the
Bear River refuge in Utah is being
made by plane
The National Park Service counts
elk and buffalo in Winter feeding
ranges through aerial inspection. en-
coarages air sightseeing in the Grand
Canyon, Boulder Dam and Yellow
stone Parks, and frequently leases
planes to search for lost tourists. IT.
recently recovered by plane the bodies
OF three persons drowned in, Lake
Mead.
Game Violators Hunted.
The Bureau OF Fisheries resorts to
the airplane largely for patrolling
Alaskan fishing waters in Quest of
hsh and game violators.
Every day the Weather Bureau
sends IS Army and Navy planes and
IL contracted commercial ships up
$4,000 feet above strategic bureaus
10 get temperature, humidity and
pressure readings and for cloud meas
Uements and ice formation data.
The Geological Survey and the Soil
Conservation Service join the Gov
ernment's sky work with many flights
for aerial photographs from which
they produce valuable base maps,
The Conservation Service has found
Air photos particularly useful in soil
erosion work in the West, where
mapped areas are vast and remote.
In emergencies Army and Navy
planes are frequently pressed into
military service for disaster and rescue
work.