The war also has given us a practical demonstration of some of the possibilities of cargo transportation by air. The Air Transport Command of the Army Air Forces and the Naval Air Transport Service are utilizing planes to transport supplies and munitions to our allies and battlefields throughout the world, and to bring to this country strategic materials esssential to our war economy. Exact performance figures are a military secret, but we know that the tonnage of vital supplies being carried is adding substantially to the striking power of the military forces.

VI. CIVIL AVIATION'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR EFFORT

I have pointed out certain respects in which post-war civil aviation will receive new momentum from the war. That, however, is only one side of the story. As the alert drafters of the Civil Aeronautics Act recognized in 1938, civil aviation is of vital importance to our national security. Experience in the present war has proven it beyond peradventure of doubt.

The air lines had available at the outbreak of war organizations— consisting of trained teams of technical personnel-and the plants. capable of undertaking operations in many phases of aviation, thereby relieving the military commands from the time and effort they would otherwise have been required to expend at the outset in building organizations and plants for those operations. As a result of this preparation in advance, the air lines have (1) served as a reservoir of aviation, equipment, pilots, technical and expert personnel, and have contributed "know how" experience to the military forces in many noncombatant fields. When I refer to them as having served as a reservoir, I meant that the reservoir has been drawn upon necessarily to a very considerable extent, (2) conducted most extensive noncommercial wartime transport services domestically and to many parts of the world under contract with the War Department and the Navy Department, (3) performed overhaul, repair, modification, and other special services for the Army and the Navy, (4) trained many pilots, mechanics, meterologists, and other technical personnel for the military services, (5) performed various services required by our international relations and by our national best interests abroad, and (6) with one-half of the pre-war domestic fleet of airplanes, been carrying as much, if not more, traffic and mail on the domestic commercial services as was carried in pre-war days with the full fleet.

This latter striking result has been made possible by a greatly increased utilization of equipment to which I have referred and by higher load factors. This fast commercial air service in a war where speed in production and in international communication is of the highest importance cannot be overestimated. Connecting all factories, suppliers, and Government authorities in the United States by a system of communications which reduces the entire United States to an overnight or shorter trip is a contribution to our modern war program not to be appraised lightly. A system of priorities insures that the host of travelers who are on these war missions can be assured of first passage over all other persons and things.

In February 1942, to repeat, the Government called upon the air carriers to turn over a number of their planes to the Army for use in military transport. In May 1942 they were required to turn over

about half of the transport planes used in domestic services, which were purchased by the Government, and some of the remainder were leased by the Government for military uses. At various other times additional aircraft have been purchased by the Government. Many of these aircraft to which I have referred as having been taken by the Government, and others as well, have been and are being operated by the airlines for the Government under contract with the Army and the Navy.

In order to make the remaining fleet of aircraft available for commercial use of the greatest possible service, the Army and the Board, so far as domestic operations are concerned, have maintained a careful watch over the service pattern, eliminating operations where essential war traffic did not call for their continuance, suspending service at points where that was necessary for the maximum war service, and generally assisting in effecting the greatest possible use of the remaining equipment.

Nothing more need be said to show that the commercial air-transport industry has proven its worth in an outstanding way as an essential supporting part of the Nation's war program.

The committee is to be congratulated not only upon its initial realization in the Civil Aeronautics Act of the relationship between peacetime aviation and national defense but also upon its recognition in the pending bill that a reappraisal of aviation's role in the national security is necessary now.

VII. AVIATION IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD

We have seen the roll of aviation in war. As a peacetime instrument the airplane is recharting the world geographically and opening new areas commercially. On the popular Mercator projection map which shows the world spread out flat, a map that all of us remember from school use, it appears that, to give as an illustration, the shortest, most direct route from Washington to Tokyo would be straight westward across the United States passing close to San Francisco and continuing across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. This is not the shortest route by any manner of means. Although we have known for more than 400 years that the world is round our mental picture of the world has frequently remained flat. Today, for the airplane, the most direct route from Washington to Tokyo is northwest over the Great Lakes, through Canada, passing close to Fairbanks, Alaska, skirting eastern Siberia, and down into Japan. For the first time the world has a medium of transportation without shore lines; it crosses oceans, mountains, and deserts with equal ease. will free isolated peoples from many of the handicaps of natural barriers and difficult terrain that have previously chained those peoples to the most primitive forms of transportation and thwarted their progress.

It

It is the fastest transportation man has ever devised. Today you can fly from New York to London and return quicker and in greater comfort than you could travel from New York to Boston a little over a century ago. Continents are now hours apart instead of days; some of our great cities are minutes apart instead of hours.

As the factory becomes accessible within minutes (or, at the most, hours) of the ultimate user, the usefulness of the middleman dimin

ishes, large inventories of many products in the hands of dealers and retailers become less necessary. Some part of the large amounts of capital tied up in the present-day machinery of selling and distribution, scattered between the factory, the warehouses, the middleman, and the local dealers, can be freed for use in actual manufacturing and in research-when the equipment is available. Huge warehouses filled with waiting goods may diminish somewhat in size; and distribution may become more and more direct factory-airport to cityairport shipments.

Aviation will supply the means for opening up a market for many of our products in corners of our Nation and of the globe not heretofore reached by the arteries of commerce for such trade. This does not mean that the airplane will supplant the steamship and train, of course. The service it offers, though competitive to a substantial degree, should accelerate trade carried on by boat and train. New business relations arising from airplane trade with merchants of China, for example, will naturally provide a stimulant to our land and sea trade.

The outstanding features of the airplane are speed and its ability to cross over all physical barriers to touch any part of the world. Therefore, the division of use can be readily seen: On the one hand we will have high-speed trade and travel going by air-at different speeds and different prices--and on the other hand we will have the slow, bulk traffic moving by land and sea.

VIII. AMENDMENTS TO THE ACT

The Civil Aeronautics Board, as I have already indicated, is, of course, preparing to give your committee detailed comments on the various provisions of the bill H. R. 1012, introduced in the House by Mr. Lea. There are various recommendations as to additional legislation contained in our 1942 annual report, recently submitted to you, some of which are covered in H. R. 1012 and others of which remain for your consideration. We hope that you will find it possible to incorporate appropriate provisions with respect to these remaining recommendations in the present bill. I will mention only three of these remaining recommendations at this time.

A. SECURITY ISSUES AND UNDERWRITING

The Board recommended that it be given power to regulate security issues of the air carriers and that the provisions of the law with respect to interlocking relationships and underwriting transactions be clarified. It may be pointed out that the air transport industry has up to now been singularly free from some of the most serious financial evils which have caused trouble in other public utility fields. It should be of the first importance to keep the air transportation industry as clean as possible in these respects and it is for that reason that the Board has submitted to your attention recommendations on these two subjects.

B. INITIATION OF NEW ROUTES

The third remaining recommendation which I desire to mention is that the Board be granted the power to initiate new routes. The act does not now give to the Board any clear authority to initiate the

establishment of such new routes for air-transportation services where applications therefor are not first filed by private individuals or companies, although the Board has power under the act to require amendments to certificates on its own initiative without application by the carrier, after notice and hearing. The word "amendment" is vague and carries with it a limited concept. Consequently it has been argued that the Act now appears to contemplate that the Board shall await the filing of applications in order to authorize any substantial new service. If the Board is to develop air transportation in such manner as to keep pace with the requirements of national defense and our general national interests it must be given the power to initiate proceedings upon its own initiative for the purpose of determining the particular routes not then in operation which should be established. Section 401 (n) of the act authorizes the Postmaster General to certify to the Board that new routes are required for the transportation of mail. Congress, therefore, has aleady decided that it is sound policy to provide for a power in the Government to initiate proceedings with respect to the establishment of new mail routes and the need is equally clear for such a power with respect to the establishing of all new routes.

C. ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS BY THE BOARD

Inasmuch as the bill before us is a rather comprehensive bill, the Board has under consideration now the possibility of making some additional recommendations for amendments over and above those listed in its annual report. In due course any comments that we have to make in this respect will be given to your committee along with our formal comments on the provisions of the bill which you have requested.

D. NATIONAL DEFENSE

In advance of the submission of our detailed comments on the bill I think it proper to say now that this bill represents an effort to provide answers to a number of problems of major importance to aviation. One very important provision in this bill deals with the enlarged concept of national defense, one of the standards under which the Board is to act, as set forth in sections 17 and 23 of the bill. These proposed amendments to the extent that they are directed toward the future role of air transportation as an auxiliary to the armed forces in time of national emergency deserve most careful consideration and will, of course, be dealt with when our formal comments are submitted to you.

I will also refer specifically today to the problems dealt with in this bill of (1) State regulation of aviation and Federal regulation of intrastate operations, (2) airport development, (3) airport zoning, (4) the regulation of air contractors, and (5) aviation education.

E. STATE REGULATION AND INTRASTATE OPERATIONS

From the beginning air carriers have formed systems of transportation traversing several States. There are few States, indeed, which cannot be crossed in 2 hours' flying time. The average pas

83838-43

senger's trip by air carrier is nearly 400 miles in length, whereas the average rail passenger's trip is less than 50 miles in length. Large air liners now travel, as I have indicated, on the average over 1,600 miles per day. While railroads serving thousands of towns are heavily used for local passenger travel, air transportation up to now has been used predominantly by long-trip passengers. It is, of course, no new doctrine that interstate commerce may include activity which occurs wholly within a single State. American Airlines flies over 23 States, United Air Lines 15, Transcontinental & Western Air 14, and Eastern Air Lines 18. Picture the 23 States over which American flies each regulating local rates, each passing on the issuance of new securities, on mergers, consolidations, interlocking relationships, and each requiring the filing of extensive reports and information. Because of this national character of air transportation, the air-transport industry has from the beginning urged exclusive Federal control; and the Civil Aeronautics Act, molded by the needs of air transportation, has gone far to effect this purpose. It seems apparent that the law should continue to be molded in this direction. In the field of safety regulation, the Board's authority now extends to all operations in interstate commerce and to all operations which directly affect or which may endanger safety in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce. It is inevitable that this phraseology will receive a broad and liberal interpretation. This young and complicated industry has required, for safe operation, the establishment of extensive Federal standards and regulations. Everything about a flight in the air from 100 to 500 miles per hour must be better than passable— it must be good. Whether we like it or not, we know that that result cannot be obtained without regulation. The pilot, the mechanic, the airplane, the rules of the air, and the controller of air traffic must each meet a high standard of safety. Flight is no exception to the old rule that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Here again, Federal uniformity of regulation is essential. Think of United Air Lines' pilots having to comply with safety rules changing 15 times going between New York and San Francisco during one night. It simply could not work-not with planes traveling 1,600 miles per day on the average. And it is not only air lines which must have uniform rules. Substantially every aircraft in the air "may endanger safety in interstate commerce." Any plane is capable of flying great distances, of flying on the Federal airways, of interfering with interstate flying in a hundred ways. The pilot of any plane is responsible not only for his own safety and that of his passengers, if any, but to a great extent for the safety of all planes passing nearby. Every commercial plane in the air is subject to whatever hazards may arise from the operation of all other planes in every locality through which it passes. Planes improperly equipped, maintained, or operated are all factors in the equation of air safety. A plane out of control for mechanical failure or lack of flying ability on the part of the pilot or a reckless pilot engaging in acrobatics is a source of danger to all flying operations in the vicinity.

It cannot be ascertained in advance which planes will be operated so close to commercial operations as to endanger those operations in case of mechanical failure, lack of flying ability, or irresponsible conduct. A graphic illustration of this general problem is found in a