ontinued on without mishap to Calcutta. This
distance from Cairo to Karachi, 2,548 miles, was made in thirty-six
hours' flying-time; from Karachi to Delhi the distance is 704 miles,
and from Delhi to Calcutta 300, a total of 4,052 miles from the main
city of Egypt to the greatest commercial port of India. No route had
been surveyed, no landing-places obtained, no facilities provided.
Territory inaccessible to ordinary travel, land where the white man is
almost a stranger, was crossed. Yet it was all done as part of the
day's work, in no sense as a record-breaking or spectacular trip.

The certainty of flight from London to India was demonstrated. A
bi-weekly service for both passengers and mails was at once planned.
Almost immediately preparations for the route were worked out,
twenty-five airdromes and landing-fields were designated, of which the
main ones would be at Cairo and Basra on the Tigris, with subsidiary
fields at Marseilles, Pisa, or Rome, Taranto, Sollum, Bushire,
Damascus, Bagdad, Bander Abbas, Karachi, Hyderabad, and Jodhpur. It
is estimated that the flight of 6,000 miles, at stages of about 350
each, would take seven or eight days as against the present train and
steamer time of five or six weeks. At the same time another route far
shorter than that which would be necessary by following the sea route
lies over Germany, Russia, and the ideal flying-land along the Caspian
Sea, Krasnovodsk, Askabad, Herat, Kandahar, and Multan.

As with Asia Minor and Asia so with Africa, the British at once made
plans for aerial routes. Only a few weeks after the armistice
announcement was made of plans for an "All Red Air Route" from Cairo
across the desert and the jungle to the Cape. This could all be done
over British territory, with the part over Lakes Victoria Nyanza and
Tanganyika covered by hydroplanes. The moment men were released from
the war, surveying of this route was begun and tentative plans made
for landing-fields every 200 miles over the 5,700-mile trip.

The air is ours to do whatever we can with it. There must be developed
a large interest in this country in the business of flying. We must
make the air our third, fastest, and most reliable means of
communication between points in a way to compete with transportation
on land and sea. The airplane, instead of being the unusual thing,
must become a customary sight over our cities and villages. The first
step in the development is the training of airplane p