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Full text of "How Free are the Skyways"

APR 4 t948 







Prepared for 

The Uniteu States Ak.uko Kmui:. 



This pamphlet is one of a series rnuole uwiilulile Iiy I lie War Drpartint'iil under 
llie series title 67 RtuiiufttthU; As ihe general title indicates, 67 Routu/tahh 
pamphlets provide material which information-education officers may use in 
conducting: proup discussions or forums as purl uf un off-duty education 
program, untl which operators of Armed Forces Kadio Service outlets ina> 
use in preparing CI Radio Kouudtahie discussion broadcasts. 

The content of this pamphlet has been prepared hy the Historical Service 
Hoard of the American Historical Association. Each pamphlet in the series has 
only one purpose: to provide factual information and balanced arguments us a 
basis for discussion of all sides of lh»- question. It is not to be inferred that 
the War Department endorses any one of the particular views presented. 

Specific suggestion* for the ahcasnon or forum lemttt who plans to tute this 
pamphlet will be found »« page 36\ 


Wamiinmon 25. I). C. 28 Dee 1945 

|A.(;. 300.7 <2H Dec 45). | 

KM 17, 67 Round lahlv: How Free Arc the Skyways? 

Current War Deportment instructions authorize the requisition of 
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25 military personnel, within limits of tin- availaltle supply. Additional 
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Distributed for use in the educational and informational programs of (he Nats. 
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ing, Bureau ok Naval Personnel. Washington 25. I). C (Copies for Navy 
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sitioned from i he Commandant (PTl. U. S Coast Guard Ib-adqimrfeis 
Washington 25, D. C.) 


Why is freedom of the air a peacetime problem? 1 

How serious are the obstacles to freedom? 6 

Can the obstacles be removed? 15 

Will postwar flying be quick and cheap? 24 

What are the "Five Freedoms" of air transport? 32 
To the discussion leader ... 36 

Other Gl Roundtable 
subjects 41 



Freedom of the Air 


xjlLMOST a century ago a prophetic poet foresaw "the 
heavens filled with commerce." His name was Alfred Lord 

Today passenger and cargo transport planes by the thou- 
sands roar through the skies. Jt begins to look as though 
Tennyson was right. During the war these planes went mostly 
on military errands and could cross friendly frontiers without 
explicit and individual permission. The question remains to 
be answered, however: Will even more commerce fill the 
skies of peace? 

]n their wartime service, transport planes could go farther 
at greater speeds across more arduous routes carrying heavier 
cargoes than they ever could before. 

In the African jungle, planes on regular runs were almost 
as common as lions. Twenty planes an hour crossed the high 
Himalayas through fierce storms and between the jagged 
peaks of the Shangri-la country. Planes flew from New York 
to London between supper one day and lunch the next. Daily 
they rode the airways above the iceberg lanes of the North 

Those are impressive accomplishments. But is the golden 
age of aviation truly upon us? Or will the plane, because peace 
has come again, be a modem chained giant? 

Closing the skies 

For a number of reasons air commerce did not come into its 

own before the war. 

In the first place there was the technological hazard. Men 
still had a long way to go in overcoming the problems of 
weather and of mechanical imperfection in planes and motors. 

In the second place an economic hazard stood in the way. 
Despite its speed, air travel always failed in the past to attract 
enough passengers and freight to make wide-scale operation 
profitable. The airlines grew as a result of slate subsidies. 
Pan American World Airways (formerly Tan American Air- 
ways), the great international line which has its headquarters 
in the United States, got its impetus from Post Ofiicc Depart- 
ment subsidies for carrying air mail. 

In the third place a political hazard has postponed the arrival 
of the air age. 

The first hazard faded to all but a memory during the war 
as intercontinental Hying became an everyday reality. It is 
possible that enough peacetime air traffic will now develop to 
erase the second. But the third one continues to loon) as the 
greatest barrier that must be brought down before Tennyson's 
prophecy can come true. 

Does anybody turn the air? 

A few years ago a song writer told us: "The skies belong to 
everyone." Hut he didn't know his international politics. 


Twenty planes an hour over tin Hump 


Boundaries in the eky 

As a matter of fact, each country claims exclusive control 
or "sovereignty" over sky above its territory. If you could 
hang boundary markers in the clouds, you would find that 
the Upper air is cut up into as many political divisions as the 
face of the earth itself. 

In that fact lies one of the problems of the future of inter- 
national Hying. I'-very country has been insisting on the 
right to decide whose planes may lly over its territory. At the 
same time almost every country has a plan for establishing 
commercial airline routes through the air above some other 

Will all nations hold to these contradictory aims of expand- 
ing their own use of the air while restricting the use other 
nations can make of it? If they do, the result might be either 
the establishment of even higher walls that would cut off 
aerial intercourse between all countries or an outburst of 
conflict that would obtain air advantages for only a few of the 
nations of the world. 

Can the nations reach a common understanding that will 
free the air from most of the political barriers? What sort of 
understanding would make possible the maximum use of 
aviation knowledge and equipment developed during and 
before the war? 

What is our stake? 

The future of air commerce involves questions that profoundly 
affect the foreign affairs of the United Stales. Kich in planes 
and aviation engineering skill, America car look forward to 
an era of intercontinental Hying that will put South America, 
Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia just around the corner 
from the forty-eight states. 

The settlement of international air problems can help bind 
the various countries of the world more closely together — 
politically as well as commercially. Or the settlement can keep 
the world divided. Let us sec how international aviation has 
progressed in the past and examine the schemes put forward 
to improve its prospects for the future. 

I In international air pioneers 

The history of international commercial aviation falls neatly 
into two periods: (1) the pioneer era before World War 11, 
and (2) the wartime era of great expansion. 

International aviation began with the commercial conquest 
of a modest distance, the 200 miles between London and Paris. 
The line was opened in the summer of 1919, shortly after 
World War 1 gave to aviation its first great impetus. The 
journey took two hours, but it saved the passengers the 
agony of crossing the stomach-tossing Straits of Dover via 
surface ship. 

hVorn 1919 to 1939 was the pioneering age in international 
(lying. Airlines expanded to a total of more than 300,000 
route miles. The North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Pacific 
oceans were spanned. Networks were laid over Europe, North 
America, South America. Europe was linked with the Far 
East and Australia. A number of routes were opened in Africa, 
no more the secluded Dark Continent. 

Airmen complain, however, that those advances of the 
pioneer era were but a small portion of what might have been 
done had the nations of the world understood the great im- 

portance of the airplane. The world seemed to fear the plane 
more than appreciate it. Two fears especially held the 
commercial airplane on a leash during the international 
pioneering age. 

The plane as an instrument of aggression 

The strongest fear was military, the fear that foreign airlines 
might use their planes for aggression. This fear has made 
governments hesitant to let planes fly into the air they control. 
It led the French government a few years before the war to 
propose a limitation on the size of planes operating inter- 

"The military aspect of aviation cannot fundamentally be 
separated from the civil aspect," a report of the British govern- 
ment said in 1938. For the most part, civil planes are not easily 
converted to combat uses, any more than a supcrliner becomes 
a battleship easily ; conversely the military planes used in 
World War II have little peacetime commercial worth. 

Nevertheless, international commercial flying does give 
pilots practice in long-distance operation that is usable in 
flying bombers and troop transport planes or in instructing 
others how to fly them. International flying makes possible 
the mapping of foreign areas that might later become bomb 
targets or paratroop objectives. 

Development of international routes and production of the 
planes needed to fly them can lay the foundation for an indus- 
try devoted to the manufacture of large planes — civilian plane:; 
in peace, combat planes in war. Germany consistently took 
advantage of its international commercial flying for politico- 
military purposes. 

The economic fear 

The second strangling fear was economic, growing out of the 
fact that planes have been able in the past to attract only a 
small percentage of the persons and freight in motion from 
one point on the earth's surface to another. 


This fear has led some countries to impose restrictions on 
the regularly scheduled planes of other countries lest a few 
nations obtain a lion's share of the total business. And it has 
led some countries to exploit their geographical locations by 
exacting a price — often a stiff one — for allowing the planes 
of other nations to lly over their territory. 


When tjif. wild GEESE who have spent the summer in northern 
Sweden get the autumn urge to lly south, they head for the 
Mediterranean and cross the boundaries of a number of coun- 
tries without any permission Irom a mortal agency like a 
government bureau. Not so in prewar days with commercial 
airplanes carrying passengers, mails, and freight over regularly 
scheduled routes. 

Before World War II, governments made some progress 
through the tedious business of reaching individual agree- 
ments with a large number of other countries. By trading 
off privileges and by making special financial arrangements, 
governments gradually got for regular commercial planes 

Except through this process of special negotiation — and 
sometimes in the process — nations have hesitated to grant 
foreign planes the privileges of flying over their territory, of 
landing to refuel or make repairs, or of landing to discharge 
or take on passengers and freight. 

These privileges have lately been divided into five classes. 
so it may be easier to discuss the underlying issues in 
similar divisions. 

Freedom of transit 

The first is the mailer of Hying across the territory of other 
nations. This is the so-called "right of innocent passage." 


they cannot enjoy mutual air commerce unless their planes 
can ily over the intervening territory. Countries which lie 
across straight airline routes can thus use their position for 
great good or ill to international aerial transportation. 

The greatest obstacle to freely granted privileges of transit 
through the air of one country by the planes of another has 
been the strategic consideration. Nations do not relish the 
idea of permitting the planes of other nations to Ily unhin- 
dered and unquestioned over their territory. Rivalry among 
colonial powers has been another barrier. Until Great Britain, 
France, and Belgium reached agreement on lines to their 
-African colonies, each stood in the others' way. And the spirit 
of competition for aerial traffic has moved nations to bar 
transit over their territory until they were ready to engage 
in the business themselves. 

Operational stops 

The second privilege is that of landing for nontrainc purposes, 
and the like. This is important particularly for transoccan 
hops. On these routes nations possessing islands that are 
essential for intercontinental Hying are in the saddle. For 
instance, at the present time (lights across the North Atlantic, 
to be profitable, must have access to land in Newfoundland, 
Iceland, Bermuda, or the Azores. 

The United States, of course, has complete control of Pacific 
flying through possession of Hawaii, a key station on the 
middle Pacific route, and Alaska, the gateway from North 
America to Siberia. Before the war, the United Slates, with 
an eye to possible Japanese operations, declined to admit 
foreign planes either to Hawaii or the Philippines. That was 
the reason Australia, which wanted the right lo fly a route 
via Hawaii to Canada, declined to let Pan American Airways 
extend its service from New Zealand to Australia. 

673402° — 46—2 

International rivalries and fears slowed up the progress of 
European air routes to the Orient until hard bargains about 
Airways (Britain) Ily to ligypi by way of an Italian base only 
in return for British permission for an Italian line lo ily to 
Iraq via Palestine, a British mandate. Turkey unrelentingly 
closed its air to commercial planes bound for the Orient. 

Oceanic and land bases are still important even though the 
range of modern planes enables them to cross great bodies of 
carry less gasoline than docs the one-hop plane. That means 
it can carry more paying passengers and freight. 

Stopping to do business 

Third is the privilege of landing to discharge passengers, mail, 
or cargo taken on in the country whose nationality the aircraft 
possesses, that is, under whose flag it Hies. 

The related privilege of taking on passengers, mail, or cargo 
destined for the country whose nationality the plane possesses 
is the fourth privilege. 

Jealous bargaining over privileges three and four has slowed 
down the development of international routes. Governments 
have required that their airlines be given reciprocal privileges 
in a second country when the airlines of that country seek 
admission to the first country. 

Sometimes country A not only has sought reciprocal privi- 
leges but has stipulated that country B cannot begin operations 
For instance, the United Stales had a reciprocal agreement 
with Britain respecting the crossing of the Atlantic. When 
Pan American Airways was ready to begin (lights to Britain 
flights to the United States and a special permit was needed 
to let Pan American start. 


The twenty Latin-American countries, not being in a posi- 
tion to engage in competitive operations, generally have not 
demanded reciprocity, and airway development has progressed 
in our country demand reciprocal privileges of each other. 

In 1932 American lines Hew their transport planes an 
average of 87,500 miles each, while European lines Hew theirs 
an average of 22,100 through the blocked skies of that conti- 
nent. In 1942 American domestic airlines averaged 464,000 
miles per plane. 

Some persons credit this American advantage to the free 
sky lanes between the states. Others attribute it l<> the facts 
that Americans on the whole live on a higher economic level 
than Europeans and that commercial flying within the United 
States has been technologically superior to that within Europe. 
Perhaps it is just that distances are much greater. 

Picking up business en route 

The fifth and final privilege is that of carrying passengers, 
mail, and cargo between intermediate countries on a route — 
neither country being that whose nationality the aircraft 
possesses. This is important for intercontinental Hying. As 
long as this privilege is restricted, an aircraft flying outbound 
on a long route with stops in several countries must fly with 
a constantly growing number of empty seats. 

"For example," a State Department official says, "a plane 
Koine would drop off at each city the passengers booked to 
that point and take on none, thus probably arriving at Cairo 
with perhaps two or three scats occupied. Between New York 
is through traffic, and therefore we should be able to operate 
restriction would strangle the lines of every country except 
those operated for political reasons with heavy government 


The fifth privilege tends also lo be restricted by the fail 
that most countries reserve to their own lines right to what 
is known as cabotage. This is the carrying of passengers or 
freight between two points within the territory of one country. 
As long as cabotage is reserved, a foreign airline coming from 
across the Atlantic to the interior of the United States, for 
instance, cannot pick up passengers in New York and take 
them on to Chicago. Some countries interpret cabotage to 
cover operations between a country and its colonies in other 

Prewar cooperation 

In attempts to reduce the barriers lo enjoyment of these five 
privileges, the nations have sought in the past to make inter- 
national agreements that included many countries. The most 
important pacts were made at Paris in 1919 — which the United 
States signed but never ratified — and at 1 lavana in 1928 among 
the American Republics. Only the United States and ten 
other nations have ratified the latter. 

The Paris and Havana conferences failed to establish any 
of the live privileges as an international reality. But they did 
provide a simplified basis by which individual countries could 
make air agreements with other individual countries. Inter- 
national cooperation in the air was extended as a result of the 
Paris convention. 

Some governments made what are known as pooling 
arrangements — by which the lines of two countries split the 
profits and deficits from operating one route together. This 
scheme divided the economic risk. 

France and Germany had a pooling arrangement for their 
services from Europe to South America. In the intricate net- 
work of lines within Europe pooling was common. 

The prewar routes 

Despite restrictions on its freedom of Night, the airplane forced 
its way around the world during the pioneering era. 


Pan American Airways was the pioneer United Stales inter- 
national line. It began operations in 1927 with a line from 
Miami to Havana that, among other things, exploited people's 
thirst for a drink when the Prohibition Amendment was in 
force in the United Stales. 

When war came on December 7, 1941, the United States 
was operating 9.S.000 route miles of international airways; this 
country's rouie mileage was the world's longest. Here are 
the 1938 airway mileages, international and domestic, of other 
leading aviation countries: 

The Soviet Union, 58,036 miles, almost entirely for domestic 
3,744; Argentina, 1,581. 

Air commerce during the tear 

The second World War had a curious effect on international 
Hying. The world's air was rent in two, part of it controlled 
by the Axis, part by the United Nations. Antiaircraft barriers 
between the two parts were more formidable than any of the 
barriers that discouraged the development of Hying between 
countries and continents before the war. Only combat planes 
or troop-carrying planes protected by combat planes traveled 
from erne air region to the other. 

could move almost without hindrance from one section to 

This change came from urgent necessity. The conduct of 
the war required that men and supplies be moved quickly 
over long distances. To meet their military requirements the 
United Nations developed one set of international routes, and 



Mure than 400,000 airway miles in December 1941 


Pacific Ocean 

Azimiilhal equidistant projection centered at 40° IN, 175* W 



Land Hemisphere 


Azimuthal equidistant projection centered at 18° N, 0° hMlgilude 


the Axis developed another set— or rather two sets, because 
the region controlled by Germany and Italy was far removed 
from the region controlled by Japan. 

Neutral airlines provided a wartime link between the air 
worlds of the United Nations and of Germany. Throughout 
the war, planes flew with variable regularity from Stockholm 
to Aberdeen and from Stockholm to Berlin. 

Wartime mileage increases 

The war brought a marked increase in the total mileage of 
international air routes. This happened even though the 
Germans had to give up their Oriental and transatlantic lines, 
the Italians were forced to abandon their European and inter- 
continental lines, the Netherlands suspended its route to the 
Orient, and the French lines gave up their South Atlantic 
crossing and their flights to the Far East. 

In their place, the British Overseas Airways Corporation 
(BOAC, successor to both Imperial Airways and British Air- 
ways) developed an extensive transatlantic service. With the 
assistance of the Belgian Sabena lines, it increased the number 
of its African lines while maintaining operations to India. Its 
wartime routes totaled 70,000 miles. The Dutch KLM line 
opened a network of operations in the Caribbean Sea region, 
with a United States link at Miami. The French inaugurated 
special military lines in Africa. 


Most extensive of all were the new routes operated by the 
The Naval Air Transport Service, created on December 12, 
as the Ferrying Command, operated more than 160,*000 miles. 
front advanced farther into enemy territory. Within a month 
after the liberation of Paris, ATC planes included Paris on 


their schedules. Soon they were flying to Brussels. Within a 

The speeds maintained, the distances covered, the trying 
terrain conquered, the foul weather outwitted, and the great 
variety of cargo carried by ATC and NATS altogether testify 
that man is winning the technological battle against the air. 

But the question still remains whether the economic and 
political hazards can be overcome. ATC and NATS, as mili- 
tary lines, paid little heed to questions of financial efficiency. 

ATC ran the biggest hotel chain in the world. It dished 
out more meals a day than any other transport enterprise in 
history. NATS and ATC together carried about 45,000 pas- 
sengers a month. Their pilots buzzed the back yard of Santa 
Claus and braved the rainy season thundershowers of the 

The accompanying maps reveal some of the NATS and ATC 
routings. In the operations of these wartime lines, perhaps, 
we sec the shape of the future. 


Does the end of the war mean the end of the two fears that 
held back the development of international flying before the 
war? Will the strangling restrictions go? 

If the world can answer "yes" to those questions, then the 
golden age that the poet Tennyson envisioned may truly dawn. 

If this new air age comes about, how will it look? 

More routes planned 

Perhaps transoceanic planes no longer will halt at the coastal 
fringes of continents as they did before the war. They may 
start their runs as far inland as Chicago and end them as far 
inland .is Moscow. 

New intercontinental links are planned. A person will be 
able to travel directly from North America to Africa, or to 
Asia by way of northern Europe. 

673403° — 46—3 



Network of 160,000 airway miles in June 1945 

Pacific Ocean 

.t/iiniiiliiil eqiiidislanl projection renlered at 40° N, 175° W 



Land Hemisphere 


Azimitllinl <-i|iii<li-i;n!i projirlion ri-iil<*-n;«I ul ■t&" N, 0" loupilmb- 



Network of 00,000 airway miles in May 1945 

Pacific Ocean 

Azitmilluil equidistant projection centered at 40" N, 175" W 



Land Hemisphere 

Aziimilliiil oi|iiiilis1iuil projection reiilereri nl 48" IN, 0° longiluiie 

6/3407° — 46 — 4 


Airmen envision at least five lanes across ihe Atlantic which 
we may call: (1) the Viking route, via Labrador, Greenland, 
and Iceland to Scandinavia; (2) the Iceberg route, via New- 
foundland, Eire, and England ; (3) the Sunshine route, via 
Bermuda, the Azores, and Portugal; (4) the Equatorial route, 
via Bermuda, the Azores, and West Africa; and (5) the Latino 
route, via Brazil and West Africa. 

Only the Iceberg route and the Sunshine route operated 
before the war. The Viking route and the Latino route were 
added during the war. The Equatorial route is projected. 

New ways to span the broad Pacific lie ahead. Lines may 
regularly run from the United States to Australia. They will 
reach the Netherlands East Indies from the Philippine Islands 
and reach Japan from Guam. 

"North to the Orient" is the quickest way to reach Asia 
from the United Stales, although the ordinary map would not 
lead us to think so. So routes are planned to Batavia via 
Alaska, the Aleutians, Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula, Japan, 
and the Philippines, and via Alaska, Siberia, Manchuria, and 
Singapore, or the Philippines. 

From San Francisco to Batavia by way of Hawaii is 9,830 
miles. By way of the Aleutian Islands and Tokyo, believe it 
or not, it is only 9,375 miles. 

Regularly operated airways apparently will enclose the 
globe. The maps of the future show routes from the United 
States to Calcutta by way of the Pacific and routes from 
the United States to Calcutta by way of the Mediterranean Sca. 

More countries in the airtvays 

Far more countries will operate international lines than did 
before the war. And those who operated them previously 
will extend the scope of their undertakings. 

Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and perhaps 
others propose to inaugurate service across the Atlantic to 
North America over routes already operated by the United 
States and Britain. 


Netherlands and British Commonwealth airlines propose to 
link Asia with North America via the Pacific. The Union of 
South Africa will be readily available to air travelers from the 
United States. United States airlines are seeking approval for 
the opening of new routes to Latin America. New services 
will link Europe with South America. 

Within Europe there is certain to be a rearrangement of 
operations, for the victorious powers are not inclined to per- 
mit Germany or Italy to start again the airlines they were 
maintaining before the war. 

In time planes may possibly lly over the North Polar region 
in joining the Old and New Worlds. Russian airmen twice 
made this hop in 1937. It is 11,900 miles from New York to 
Chungking by way of San Francisco and the Pacific. It is 
only 7,600 miles by way of the North Pole. But the long polar 
hop may be unprofitable, and although wartime flying across 
Greenland and over Alaska into Siberia has taught many 
lessons about northern weather, the technological problems 
raised by polar aviation are far from solved. 

The Chicago aviation conference 

Most of the United Nations agreed in 1944 to try to get rid 
of the fears and restrictions that had held back international 
aviation before the war. They sent representatives to a con- 
ference in Chicago arranged by the United States government. 
The purpose of the conference was to find a satisfactory way 
to settle the problems arising from divided "ownership" of 
the air. 

One allied country, Russia, decided at the last moment not 
to send a delegate to the conference. Before the war Russia 
was operating almost 60,000 miles of airways within its own 
vast reaches, but it had few international links. A Swedish 
line connected Moscow with Stockholm, a Russian-German 
joint line connected Moscow with Berlin, a Russian line con- 
nected Moscow with Sofia, Bulgaria, and a Russian-Chinese 
line connected Siberia with northwestern China. 


According to Juan Trippe, the president of Pan American 
World Airways, the Russian government in 1935 granted him 
permission to run an experimental line from Alaska into 
Siberian territory, although Iris company never went ahead 
with the operation. 

Familiar fears 

For those countries represented at Chicago, the old economic 
tear was still alive. The various countries represented were 
all determined to overcome this fear, but different countries 
proposed different methods of doing away with it. 

The economic fear had two facets: 

First, fear that one or two countries might have so many 
airplanes and be able to build and operate so many more that 
they could get a monopoly of the air transport business almost 
from the word "go." 

Second, even if planes were divided up pretty evenly, the 
fear existed that the business available for international and 
intercontinental air transport — in terms of passengers, freight, 
express, and mail — would not be great enough to 1111 all the 
planes that all the countries might want to put into the air 

Ordinary rommrrrial planes transported paratroops. 

and that therefore the strongest country might soon drive the 
rest out of business if there were open competition. 

The old concern for security was also noticeable at the 
Chicago conference. The war in whose midst the delegates 
met was marked by the use of ordinary commercial planes 
to transport paratroopers behind enemy lines. This fact left 
many of the governments with a deep conviction that peace- 
lime and wartime aviation arc inextricably mixed. 

Two governments so convinced were those of Australia and 
New Zealand. Their delegations proposed an all-embracing 
international company that would own and operate the inter- 
national air services of the world. This proposal, unacceptable 
to the conference, was put forward in an attempt to cope with 
the security problem. 

The supporters of this proposal said that the international- 
ization of aircraft would render it difficult for nations to 
prepare to use peacetime planes for war purposes. The oppo- 
nents feared internationalization more than they feared attack 
from the air. 

Con feren ce disagree m en ts 

These economic and security apprehensions arc serious and 
sincere. The economic considerations inspired the suggestion 
made at the Chicago conference by the British delegation that 
after the war international air transport should be strictly 
controlled by an international bureau which would have the 
authority to fix rates, allocate traffic quotas, and assign routes 
to the various countries. 

The United States delegation, on the other hand, argued 
in favor of more wide-open competition, at least during the 
immediate postwar period, with an arrangement for later con- 
sideration of the problem of dividing up the traffic justly 
among the interested countries. It proposed establishment of 
an international body whose chief power would be to deal 
with questions of standardizing equipment and other techno- 
logical matters. 



Almost alone among the allies, the United States continued 
to construct transport planes during the war. Therein lies 
this country's prime advantage in any peacetime race lor 
routes and traffic. 

To indicate to the rest of the world that we do not intend 
to exploit this advantage unfairly, the United States govern- 
ment announced to the Chicago conference that when the war 
ended America would supply other countries with planes from 
its military surplus. 

Daring the war the United States — and to a lesser degree, 
Britain — developed planes not only for wartime but for post- 
war needs. 

The planes designed for international transport after the 
war will be far superior to those used before the war. Most 
of them are on view and many made history with their daily 
runs on ATC and NATS routes. 

Most of these planes have four motors, and each motor has 
2,000 or 2,200 horsepower — the De Haviland plane that in- 
augurated international transport in 1919, between London 
and Paris, had one motor of 345 horsepower. 

Whereas the Pan American Clipper of prewar days traveled 
165 miles an hour crossing the ocean, these modern planes 

Wright's first flight — about 120 feet 

W iiif-juvitil of CoiiMellation — 123 feet 

are far more speedy. In the spring of 1944 a Lockheed Con- 
stellation — whose wing span of 123 feet is greater than the 
distance the Wright brothers flew in their first flight in a 
plane — flew from Burbank, California, to Washington, D. C. f 
2,400 miles, in 6 hours, 57 minutes, and 51 seconds, an average 
of 330 miles an hour. 

A few months later another new sky giant, the Boeing 
Stratocruiser, transport brother of the B-29 bomber, flew 
from Seattle to Washington in slightly less time — 6 hours, 
3 minutes, and 50 seconds, averaging 383 miles an hour. The 
best fighter plane America had on Pearl Harbor Day wasn't 
that fast. 

We are betting on these 

The United States has developed both land planes and flying 
boats. Before the war the flying boat was the usual craft used 
for crossing the ocean. But today land planes regularly make 
long over-water hops. 

The outstanding flying boat developed in the United States 
during the war is the Martin Mars, a flying warehouse that 
weighs 70 tons. It has a range of 7,500 miles— enough to cross 
the Pacific in one hop. 

But it is the land plane to which the United States has 
devoted most attention. Before the war, the standard trans- 
port plane within the United States and in many countries 
abroad was the two-engined DC-3 made by Douglas Aircraft 

During the war this plane's big brother went into service — 
the DC-4, or the C-54 as the Army knows it. It can carry 44 
passengers. The manufacturer is improving the model that 
the Army has been using so that it will be more efficient. 
A still bigger brother is the 50-passenger DC-6. 

The Constellation is a 60-passenger plane with a lower 
operating cost than the DC-6. Another four-motored trans- 
port the Army has been using is the C-87, a noncombat twin 


of the Liberator bomber, But its operating cost is so high 
that it will probably not be flown commercially now that the 
war is over. 

The Mars, the DC-6, the Constellation, and the Strato- 
cruiser are the "big four" planes with which the United States 
faces the future. 

Britain's contenders 

Britain announced the design of seven new transports during 
the war, but constructed only one of the seven. 

British energies in plane construction were primarily 
devoted to combat needs, to the mighty bombers like the 
Lancaster and such fierce fighters as the Spitfire, Hurricane, 
and Typhoon. 

Outstanding among the British commercial designs for the 
future are these: 

The Brabazon — 100 tons, 250 miles an hour, capacity for 
50 passengers and two tons of mail. 

The Tudor — 32 tons, 220 miles an hour, capacity for 12 
passengers, pressurized cabin, for transatlantic service. 

The Avro York — four-engined (1,260 horsepower each), 230 
miles an hour, 50 passengers, 3,000-mile range. This brother 
of the Lancaster bomber is in production and is flying the 
North Atlantic. 

Are there too many planes on hand now? 

An important question whose answer throws some light on 
the future of air transport is how many planes all the world's 
lines will need for peacetime operation. 

They got along on relatively few before the war. United 
States domestic airlines were using only 371 transports when 
war came and our international lines, 82. But in 1944 one U. S. 
line, United, ordered 50 four-motored planes (15 DC-4's and 
35 DC-6's) for later delivery and another line. Eastern, ordered 
14 Constellations. 

Sales of surplus American military transports to foreign 


buyers began late in 1944. A subcommittee of the Military 
Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives has esti- 
mated that there will be a world demand for a good deal of 
the military surplus— for 100 C-54's and for from 280 to 1,975 
of the Army's two-engined transports, the C-47, C-53, C-46 
(Curtiss-Wright Commando), and C-93 (Budd cargo plane). 

Lord Beaverbrook, formerly in charge of coordinating 
British postwar civil air transport policy, passed on an esti- 
mate that the world would be using some 15,000 planes after 
the war. 

The war has brought the use of jet-propulsion in combat 
planes, and this revolutionary principle, adding to speed, will 
be applied to civil planes. So will rocket starling, which 
enables planes to get into the air after a relatively short run 
on the ground and with far heavier loads than planes could 
lift without rockets. 

How many paying passengers? 

Interesting as the modern planes arc, they will be common 
sights in the skies over the Atlantic and Pacific, above the 
jungles of Africa and the deserts of Asia only if there is enough 
business to keep them running. 

Planes are natural carriers into regions which neither ships 
on the sea nor trains nor automotive transport can reach from 
the outside world. This explains the success of airways in 
Latin America, interior Africa, and northern Siberia, where 
farmers who never saw a train arc quite used to the giants 
of the sky. 

They are naturals, too, for those passengers who have to 
make a long journey swiftly, say from New York to Rio dc 
Janeiro, New York to London, or San Francisco to the Far 
East, and who can hang the cost. And they are naturals for 
transporting cargoes of great value which take small space, 
like diamonds, or which are perishable, like expensive tropical 


Planes have become common carriers of the mail. Between 
parts of the British Empire, all mail was carried by plane 
before the war wherever a route existed that made it possible. 

Will airplanes attract enough passengers and enough freight 
to make intercontinental plane travel as common as steam- 
ship travel? Some students of the problem think that, in 
time, they might attract more travelers than the steamships. 
Certainly they will make future travelers of many present 

How much must they pay? 

So far as passengers are concerned, the matter of fares will 
have a good deal to do with their desire to travel by plane. 
Several years ago the United States Maritime Commission 
expressed the view that transatlantic planes would supersede 
the great luxury liners. Hut first-class tickets on those liners 
were in a price class with prewar tickets on transoceanic planes. 

During the war ATC carried priority civilian passengers on 
important missions for twelve cents a mile. That is about 
$360 from New York to Mire. Train fares average around 
three cents a mile. Late in 1945 Pan American World Airways 
dropped its New York-Eire fare from $525 to $275, but then 
had to raise it again to $375. The original fare charged on this 
flight in 1939 was $337, and Pan American has forecast a fare 
of $137 if it gels projected equipment and Civil Aeronautics 
Board approval of all pending applications. 

A number of airlines have announced low peacetime fares 
they hope to be able to charge if costs, traffic, and other con- 
siderations permit. Pan American hopes to cut its New York- 
Rio fare from $419 to a future $175. TWA looks forward to a 
possible charge of $193.50 between New York and London. 
Pennsylvania-Central hopes to carry passengers from New 
York to Paris for $186 and New York to Calcutta for $490. 

How much freight? 

The factor of cargo also governs air economics. The Army's 


C-82 cargo transport can carry a light lank. Will cargo planes 
attract freight this heavy in the years of peace? 

Many heavy cargoes are not in a hurry to get from one 
place to another, and steamships have been making money 
for years because they can haul at low rates. 

The total weight of air express carried by United States 
domestic lines in the twelve months of 1939 came to 2,700,000 
ton-miles. ATC hauled 15,000,000 ton-miles a month. 

Are the prospects good or bad? 

We cannot predict the future. But we can make estimates 
about it, and a number of students have looked closely into 
the prospects for peacetime passenger travel and cargo hauling 
inlercontinentally. This is what they foresee on the conserva- 
tive assumption that rates remain high: 

Two hundred and fifty passengers a day may fly in each 
direction over the Atlantic between Europe and North 
America, or slightly more than enough to fill four Constella- 
tions. A third as many passengers may be traveling between 
North America and South America, and a fourth as many 
may travel across the Pacific. Planes filled to 65 percent of 
passenger capacity can operate efficiently. 

Freight tonnage by air from the United Slates to northern 
Europe may average 10,000 tons a year; to the Mediterranean, 
5,000 tons; to Australia, 1,500 tons; to the Far East, 4,000 
tons; to South America, 3,000 tons; and to the Caribbean area, 
o.OOO tons. 

Those cargo figures represent an increase of ten times the 
prewar carriage of cargo between the United States and 
foreign desli nations. 

More optimistic commentators foresee a greater traffic, both 
passenger and cargo. Assuming that fares can be reduced to 
the neighborhood of three cents per mile, they estimate that 
as many as 4 million Americans may travel abroad by air 
every year. 


Other observers, pessimistically inclined, envision a lesser 
traffic than even the first figures above. 


The prospect for only limited travel helps to explain the 
economic apprehensions that were expressed at the Chicago 

In an effort to eliminate restrictions, this conference pro- 
posed to open the air to the traffic of all by declaring "five 
freedoms" — or more properly, fixe privileges. 

The privileges were set forth, in two agreements — the 
first agreement containing privileges 1 and 2 (the Inter- 
national Air Services Transit Agreement) and the other agree- 
ment containing all five privileges (the International Air 
Transport Agreement). 

The agreements propose that for scheduled international air 
services each nation grant to all others, with the possible 
exception of former enemy countries, these "freedoms": 

1. To fly across its territory without landing. 

2. To land for nontraffic purposes. 

3. To put down passengers, mail, and cargo taken on in 
the territory of the country whose nationality the air- 
craft possesses. 

4. To take on passengers, mail, and cargo destined for the 
territory of the country whose nationality the aircraft 

5. To take on passengers, mail, and cargo destined for 
the territory of another agreeing nation and to put 
down passengers, mail, and cargo coming from any such 

What do they mean? 

Freedoms 3, 4, and 5 are essentially commercial privileges that 
encourage economic enterprise in the air. Freedoms 1 and 2 


attack the political hazards that help keep the skies from 
opening wide. 

The ready reception which the delegates to the conference 
gave to the first privilege indicated that the military fear is 
subsiding. With the first freedom in force, any plane on a 
regularly scheduled run can cross any nation's territory on 
designated routes without other preliminary agreement. 

The second freedom means that, with certain limitations, 
the bases controlled by one country are open to the planes of 
any other agreeing country. Thus the United States can no 
longer close the Pacific by denying foreign lines the use of 
Hawaii if the other nation involved has accepted the second 
freedom with respect to American planes desiring to land 
in its territories. And Britain can no longer deny the use 
of Newfoundland or Bermuda to the lines of other nations 
accepting the second freedom. 

The third, fourth, and fifth freedoms, insofar as they are now 
in force, make it economically useful to send planes from one 
country to another since they can thus pick up, carry, and 
discharge passengers and cargo en route both ways. 

Without the fifth freedom a plane going, say, from New 
York to Calcutta would be unable along the way to pick up 
new passengers when others not making the whole trip got 
off. Under prewar conditions this was not always possible — 
with the result that it was not profitable to operate long 
international routes without the help of heavy governmental 

Results of the Chicago conference 

A. A. Berle, Jr., chief of the American delegation to the 
Chicago air conference, said that the meeting advanced inter- 
national aviation by two decades. That it made very con- 
siderable forward strides is undeniable. Probably the most 
important is the Provisional International Civil Aviation 
Organization which has been operating at Montreal since 


August 1945. This was provided for in an interim agreement 
reached at Chicago and is intended to be replaced by a perma- 
nent setup that will, among other things, be a clearinghouse 
for international civil aviation matters. 

Mention should also be made of the technical agreements 
reached at Chicago covering a dozen operational and regula- 
tory matters — from uniform rules of the air and traffic control 
to licensing, registration, and customs procedures. 

Eventually the system of international agreements worked 
out at Chicago should eliminate need for the old country-to- 
country negotiations that preceded every previous extension 
of international flying. Bat to ease the path in the mean- 
time for arrangements covering point-to-point international 
transport, the conference recommended a standard form of 
agreement. This is intended for the use of countries making 
bilateral — one country with another — arrangements within the 
terms of the third and fourth freedoms. From the Chicago 
conference to December 31, 1945, the United States reached 
such agreements with Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Eire, 
Canada, Switzerland, Norway, and Portugal. 

The Chicago conference marks a long step forward in man's 
cautious progress toward full use of the airplane. To the 
question of who owns the air, it gave the same answer as the 
Paris conference of 1919: Each state "owns" the air above 
its territory for an infinite distance into space. 

Kut if we ask, "How free is the air?" and then examine 
the two-freedoms and five-freedoms agreements, we can say, 
"Much freer than it used to be." By December 31, 1945 forty- 
six nations had signed the two-freedoms document and it was 
in force with respect to 25 of them. The five-freedoms agree- 
ment had been signed for 28 nations and was in force for 12. 

Issues thai remain 

The dispute whether there should be strict international 

traffic quota control in time of peace still goes on. The 


problem turns on these four questions: 

Will there be enough traffic for all the international airlines? 

Even if there is not, should not international aviation be 
governed by the principle of regulated competition? 

But would this competition tend in time to give a monopoly 
of business to the operator who started with better facilities 
than his competitors? 

And would such an advantage, especially in what will be the 
richest field of international air transport — across the Atlantic 
between Europe and North America — lead to jealousies that 
would injure international cooperation in shipping, telecom- 
munications, and the like? 



Cooperation against danger, not competition for prestige 
and economic advantage, guided United Nations air transport 
policy during the war. Economic and political obstacles were 
brushed aside. Amazing technical progress was the result, and 
thousands of men in the services observed it at firsthand. 

The postwar use of the skyways is another matter. Critical 
questions must be answered. In these questions lie the major 
issues for your discussion : 

How far will economic and political obstacles hinder peace- 
time international airlines? 

How can these obstacles be removed or minimized? 

Has something already been done to eliminate some of them ? 

Can large planes be operated safely enough and cheaply 
enough to compete successfully with steamship travel? 

Should international aviation be governed by the principle 
of open competition? 

If you raise these issues and add some of those suggested 
below, under "Questions for Discussion," you will have much 
more material than you can cover in one meeting. Your task 
is to select perhaps the first three issues or the last two as 
points to discuss at one meeting. Or you might plan two or 
three meetings if your group wishes to talk out completely 
the subject of international air transport. 

The text of this pamphlet docs not contain the answers to 
the questions that have been raised. It does, however, explain 
what the economic and political obstacles are; it describes the 
proposals made at the Chicago conference to minimize the 
obstacles; and it summarizes concisely the known facts about 
the kinds of planes which will be used in intercontinental 
flying and about estimated costs of operating such planes. So 
you have the raw material for discussion. For the present at 
least, each man will have to work out the answers for himself. 


Aids to discussion 

Use the maps. If you put rough copies of them up on the 
wall, you will find ihein of invaluable assistance whether you 
conduct a forum or an informal discussion. 

List the important problems j'ou wish to keep before your 
group all through the meeting. Two lists are suggested. They 
may be written on a blackboard or a large sheet of paper. 
It is suggested that one chart contain the three "hazards" — 
mentioned on page 2. The other could list the five privileges 
or so-called "five freedoms" found on page 32. 

The techniques of organizing and conducting discussions 
and forums are described in EM 1, 67 Roundtable: Guide for 
Discussion Leaders, which every leader should have. Leaders 
who are especially interested in conducting roundtable dis- 
cussion or forum programs over radio stations or sound 
systems of the Armed Forces Radio Service should also read 
EM 90, 67 Radio Roundtable. 

Make copies of this pamphlet available for advance reading 
in some central place — library, day room, service club, or other 
accessible spot. Informed members in your group will improve 
the quality of your meeting. 

Questions for discussion 

The questions that follow are intended to help you organize 
your discussion. If you have better ideas, don't hesitate 
to use them. 


Which do you think are the greatest obstacles to full com- 
mercial use of postwar skyways — the technological, economic, 
or political obstacles? 


Since freedom of the seas means that ships of every nation 
can sail the oceans without asking permission of any other 
nation, does free and unrestricted use of the air mean the same 
principle applied to the air? 


If nations have feared that the regularly scheduled com- 
mercial planes of other countries might be used for concealed 
military purposes, why have they left noncommercial inter- 
national Hying almost unregulated? 

Will it ever be wholly impossible to use civil planes for mili- 
tary purposes and vice versa? What are the advantages a 
nation is supposed to gain from having a large and active 
aviation program? Are they peacetime or wartime advantages? 
How important is the "prestige" accruing to a nation because 
it has a far-flung system of air routes? 

If there were to be free and open competition in inter- 
national air transport, is it likely that one nation might soon 
drive the rest out of business? Would such a development 
threaten world peace? 

Should each country allow only one line, a "chosen instru- 
ment," to enter the field of international competition? Should 
this be a private company, a government monopoly, or a joint 
operation of domestic lines, or what? If drastic competition 
between lines of several nations for, say, the North Atlantic 
passenger traffic means profits for none, should a pooling or 
price-fixing arrangement be permitted? Should international 
air rales be regulated? By whom? Are most nations or only 
a few likely to try to develop large-scale international airlines? 
Why do you think so? 

Since ocean steamers can freely pick up and discharge pas- 
sengers and freight in any port of any country, except for 
coastwise traffic (cabotage), why has a different rule been 
applied to planes? 



Will passenger travel by intercontinental plane be as com- 
mon as steamship travel? How can costs be reduced? Can 
planes compete with ships in carrying freight? Will increased 
trade and travel between countries make them closer friends 
or give rise to more frictions? 


Which of the transport planes developed for immediate post- 
war use do you think will be successful from a business 
standpoint? Will flying boats be more practical than land 
planes on long overwater hops? Do you believe the prophecy 
that within ten years after the war the majority of commercial 
planes will be jet-propelled? Is the Beaverbrook estimate that 
the world will need 15,000 planes after the war sound? If true, 
what nations do you think will operate them ? 


Do you think the Chicago conference produced important 
results? What are the most recent developments on inter- 
national aviation agreements? 


Should Germany, Italy, and Japan be allowed to engage 
again in civil aviation? In international commercial air 



These books are suggested for supplementary reading if you 
have access to them or wish to purchase them from the pub- 
lishers. They are not approved nor officially supplied by the 
War Department. They have been selected because they give 
additional information and represent different points of view. 
Civil Aviation and Peace. By J. Parker Van Zandt. Pub- 
lished by Brookings Institution, 722 Jackson Place, N. W., 
Washington 6, D. C. (1944). $1.00. 
New World Horizons: Geography for the Air Age. By 
Chester H. Lawrence. Published by Ducll, Sloan and 
Pearce, 270 Madison Ave., New York 16, N. Y. (1942). 
International Air Transport and National Policy. By 
Oliver J. Lissitzyn. Published by Council on Foreign Re- 
lations, 45 E. 65th St., New York, N. Y. (1942). $5.00. 
Wings after War; The Prospects of Postwar Aviation. 
By S. Paul Johnston. Published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce 
(1944). $2.00. 
International Air Transport. By Sir Harry Osborne Mance. 
Published by Oxford University Press, 114 Fifth Ave., New 
York 11, N. Y. (1944). $1.00. 
Empire of the Air. By Matthew Josephson. Published by 
N. Y. (1944). $3.00. 
International Control of Aviation. By Kenneth W. Cole- 
grave. Published by World Peace Foundation, 40 Mt. Ver- 
non St., Boston 8, Mass. (1930). $2.50. 



Introductory copies of each new Gl Round-table pamphlet are automatically 
issued to information-education officers in the United States and oversea areas. 
Additional copies are authorized on the basis of one copy for each 25 military 
personnel. Pumphlets may be requisitioned from the United States Armed 
Forces Institute, Madison 3, Wisconsin, or from the nearest USAFI Oversea 
Branch. List EM number, title, and quantity. New subjects will be announced 
as published. Gl Roundtable subjects now available: 

EM 1, Guide for Discission Leaders 

EM 2, What Is Propaganda? 

EM 10, What Small Be Done about Germany after the War? 

EM 11, What Shall Be Done with the War Criminals? 

EM 12, Can We Prevent Future Wars? 

EM 13, How Shall Lend-Lease Accounts Be Settled? 

EM 14, Is the Good Neighbor Policy a Success? 

EM 15, What Shall Be Done about Japan after Victory? 

EM 20, What Has Alaska To Offer Postwar Pioneers? 

EM 22, Will There Be Work fob All? 

EM 23, Why Co-ops? What Are They? How Do They Wobk? 

EM 24, What Lies Ahead fob the Philippines? 

EM 27, What Is the Future of Television? 

EM 30, Can War Marriages Be Made To Work?* 

EM 31, Do You Want Your Wife To Work after the War? 

EM 32, Shall I Build a House after the War? 

EM 33, What Will Your Town Be Like? 

EM 34, Shall I Go Back to School? 

EM 35, Shall I Take Up Farming? 

EM 36, Does It Pay To Borrow? 

EM 37, Will There Be a Plane in Every Garace? 

EM 40, Will the French Republic Live Again? 

EM 41, Our British Ally 

EM 42, Our Chinese Ally 

EM 43, The Balkans — Many Peoples, Many Problems 

EM 44, Australi \: Our Neighbor "Down Under" 

EM 45, What Future for the Islands of the Pacific? 

EM 46, Our Russian Ally 

EM CO, Gl Radio Roundtable 

tot distribution in the United Stales only. 


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