last--flight on May 28th, 1919. The total loaded weight was 30 tons,
and the machine was fitted with six 400 horse-power engines; almost
immediately after the trial flight began, the machine pitched forward
on its nose and was wrecked, causing fatal injuries to Captains Dunn
and Rawlings, who were aboard the machine. A second accident of
similar character was that which befell the giant seaplane known as the
Felixstowe Fury, in a trial flight. This latter machine was intended to
be flown to Australia, but was crashed over the water.

On May 4th, 1920, a British record for flight duration and useful
load was established by a commercial type Handley-Page biplane, which,
carrying a load of 3,690 lbs., rose to a height of 13,999 feet and
remained in the air for 1 hour 20 minutes. On May 27th the French pilot,
Fronval, flying at Villacoublay in a Morane-Saulnier type of biplane
with Le Rhone motor, put up an extraordinary type of record by looping
the loop 962 times in 3 hours 52 minutes 10 seconds. Another record of
the year of similar nature was that of two French fliers, Boussotrot
and Bernard, who achieved a continuous flight of 24 hours 19 minutes 7
seconds, beating the pre-war record of 21 hours 48 3/4 seconds set up
by the German pilot, Landemann. Both these records are likely to stand,
being in the nature of freaks, which demonstrate little beyond the
reliability of the machine and the capacity for endurance on the part of
its pilots.

Meanwhile, on February 14th, Lieuts. Masiero and Ferrarin left Rome on
S.V.A. Ansaldo V. machines fitted with 220 horse-power S.V.A. motors. On
May 30th they arrived at Tokio, having flown by way of Bagdad, Karachi,
Canton, Pekin, and Osaka. Several other competitors started, two of whom
were shot down by Arabs in Mesopotamia.

Considered in a general way, the first two years after the termination
of the Great European War form a period of transition in which the
commercial type of aeroplane was gradually evolved from the fighting
machine which was perfected in the four preceding years. There was about
this period no sense of finality, but it was as experimental, in its
own way, as were the years of progressing design which preceded the war
period. Such commercial schemes as were inaugurated call for no more
note than has been given here; they have been experimental, and, with
the possible exception of the United States Government mail service,
have not been planned and executed on