e largely used for army dispatch work. Instead of sending
official messages from post to post by the present methods, airplanes
will be used after the war as they are now being used at the front.

On the Great Lakes, airplanes can be used for coast-guard work, as on
the seacoast, and they can also be used for patrolling the lakes
themselves. Think how many wrecked lake vessels might have been saved in
the past had there been an airplane nearby to carry its message of
distress and guide rescue ships to the scene.

Forest patrol is still another opening for the use of expert aviators.
Every year, almost, our great forest fires in the northwest demonstrate
that our present methods of prevention of forest fires are faulty;
chiefly because the fires are not discovered while they are still
smoldering. Constant airplane patrol over our great forests would make
forest fires a thing of the past.

Then there are any number of commercial uses to which airplanes can be
put. Instead of a cargo of bombs, a commercial airplane could carry a
cargo of small package freight for which immediate delivery is
necessary.

The use of the airplane for passenger carrying is now being developed.
The huge Caproni and Handley-Page machines will be used for this purpose
in the future. Thousands of persons will want to fly just for the
novelty, and the possibility of accidents will be reduced to the
minimum.

Again, there is the need for scientific research and improvement of the
airplane, which will keep scores of men and machines busy for years.

It will not be necessary, of course, to maintain the numerous government
training fields for aviators after the war, but some of the best of them
should be retained. I do not believe it will be necessary to discharge a
single pilot or observer from the army or to junk a single undamaged
airplane after the war.

Henry Woodhouse, Governor of the Aero Club of America and a world-wide
authority on aeronautics, made the following forecast:

Aircraft capable of lifting fifteen tons, with a speed of one hundred
miles an hour, are now in actual production. The first of the
American-built Caproni planes, equipped with four Liberty motors and
developing 1,750 horse-power has just been successfully tested. This
giant plane has a total lifting capacity of 40,000 pounds, or twenty
tons. The super-Handley-Page or the Caproni could easily carry fifty
bags, or more than a ton of mail. This means 100,000 lette