Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1919 — Caproni Prediets World-Wide Air Traffic. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Caproni Prediets World-Wide Air Traffic.

“Personalia I shall devoteaU mu strength to development of the winged giant"

By LLOYD ALLEN,

Special Staff Correspondent. (Copyright, IPI9, by Western Newspaper Inion.) f URlN.lla4y.~Hwe Im Turin-, which was headquarters for the American air service in Italy during the war, there are many American aviation officers who believe the Caproni airptane TSTTtie TiWi-st Tyjie Of" giant" aircraft developed during the great war.. _ ; . . =i 2== 2 _ Gianni Caproni, the Italian engineer who is the genius responsible for the Caproni plane, has no hesitancy in giving the Wright brothers and IRu tor Langley of America the fullest credit for making ami developing the first practical airplanes and suites frankly that he was a kind of pupil of the great Americans. Here is what Caproni has developed from the American planes invented by Liingley and the Wrights, according, to American officers in Turin who are working with Caproni platies: Caproni has perfected a machine that will carry something like 3.000 pounds of weight, five horn's’ fuel supply, and with Liberty motors, American made, climb 3,000 feet in six minutes. With a giant machine like this Italian aviators are making plans to tty across the Atlantic during the present year. They may cross from Africa to. Brazil or may attempt the North Atlantic flight. They realize in Italy, as well as it) France and England and America. that the first machine to accomplish the Atlantic flight will win laurels eternal, ami you can take it for granted, that the Italians fully appreciate the value of the advertising they will get if they cross the Atlantic first. And they have also a very high appreciation of the glory they will achieve, because, like Americans, they are a people that love to accomplish the seemingly impossible for the sheer joy of doing it. » While big Caproni planes are being tested out in the north of Italy in the attempt to find a machine sound and perfect for the gruelling test it will get flying overseas, the Caproni plant at Milan, an immense institution, is finishing its first commercial airplanes, which have comfortable cabins for the passengers. The interior of an air-cabin, as completed in the Caproni works, looks verymuch like the inside of a finely finished street car, except that it is somewhat more crowded together. If you had visited Milan during the winter you probably would have seen the first Caproni passenger plane, a ffOO-horsepower affair capable of carrying 12 persons, making its trial flights over town. The Caproni works are in the outskirts of Milan—and the Milanese are justly proud of the accomplishments of Gianni Caproni. t I talked with Americans who have been taken up in the Caproni planes. They declared the big machines start off slowly without 'nerve-racking jars and after running a few score yard's take the air in a stable fashion that goes a long way toward reassuring riwHmatewrmakinghistirst-ftight. World-Wide Traffic Predicted. Passenger and freight-carrying Capronis are be- . Ing built in three sizes. The tirst type, which is the one that has been flown repeatedly over Milan, is the smallest of the three. In the shops the finishing touches are being pujt on a machine that will carry 25 passengers. This is the middle-sized plane. The large machine—the type that will attempt the Atlantic flight —is a monster. It is capable of carrying 100 persons and its passenger cabin is being made as comfortable as a Pullman ear, with padded chairs and handsome veneer finishings for the walls. . The largest planes afe fast. They can make 100 miles an hour when going at top speed. And it is expected that on long-distance flights they prill make the fastest railroad trains seem a slow means of travel. Caproni believes that within a very few years the world will be covered with air lines through which passenger planes will fly and over which squadrons of high-class freight-carrying machines will transport mail and-certain kinds of freight, at rates that compare favorably- Avith the charges made by the railroad companies for performing the same service. Islands, now Isolated from-the mainlands of the world, will be easily and regularly reached when the regime of air traffic gets under way, Caproni declares. While the peace conference in Paris creates a league of nations to handle matters of international interest such as freedom of the seas and freedom of the air, the manufaettfrers <ffTaffpTan.es will have the chance to get ready for* international flyIfig. Caproni, like Handley-Page in London- and like the French and American leaders in the aircraft , business, feels that most predictions about the future pf aylatipn are more or less modest, when you stop to compare the promises of the aircraft manufacturers with their actual accomplishments during the war. When the war started, long-distance flights were •virtually unknown. Just as soon as the value of . aircraft was realized, every warring nation got busy bnilding machines and previous records were almost daily. During the war aircraft accomplished time after time what had previously been considered impossible. When the war ended, the,allied nations, Including America, were completing an Aircraft building program that would have put such fl fleet of bomb carriers in the air that Berlin, like Mannheim, Coblenz and the*Rhine ’

towns, would have been bombed from stations behind the allied front in France. For instance, Gabriele d’Annunzio, the Italian poet and aviator, succeeded in reaching Vienna with a Caproni and in demonstrating to the Viennese that Italy had a' plane capable of dropping bombs on them. D'Annunzio did not drop bombs on his famous . raid ; he scattered thousands of pamphlets informing the people of Vienna that they were supporting the wrong government in the great war. It was an object lesson whose effect was great in breaking Austrian morale. Vienna was not quite as far from the allied lines as Berlin. The flight D’Annunzio made was something less than one thousand miles. But fie went heavily loaded and returned successfully. Caproni Pledges His Future. “We have vanquished our common, enemy," Caproni says, “but our task as aircraft makers is by no means finished. We must not stop. A perfect system of airplanes will be a wonderful safeguard to any nation as a protection against new outbursis. on the part of irresponsible powers, against civilization and humanity. “Personally I, am going to contribute all my strength t<> development of the winged giant which proved the most powerful and telling weapon of our just and sacred war. "Gpr plant will be maintained at full strength. We will keep the thousands of workmen who were busy here under full war strain when the armistice ended hostilities. We will not go back under any circumstances to that pre-war status, when the workmen in our plant numbered dozens rather than thousands." Caproni came Into the air game as an engineering student in that period when the Langley machine was launched under unfavorable circumstances and .when the" Wrights were making their wonderful flights with the first real airplape. The idea of flying tired Caproni's imagination. “I will never forget." he said the other day "the profound impression created in me on reading newspaper accounts of the first Wright flights. From that time until today I have dedi"cated myself terrhe. new - —~ fTcironj will call his new plane the. White Eagle. The name is linked to a strange prophecy ''published in Rome. Italy, in 1916, which is attributed to an English monk of the seventeenth century. The prophecy asserted that in the twentieth century there would be a great world war. started by the diabolical cleverness of an emperor of the country of Martin Luther in alliance with another emperor, both bearing on' their military uniforms and. on their national escutcheons two black eagles. It added that civilization' would defeat and thfow out the barbarians,, whose empires would lie divided into 22 states. . ’ It is inferred that the White Eagle is intended to typify the American bird. & The poet W. Lewis has made the event the subject of a poem .which has been set to music. The whole was* presented with a beautiful allegorical design to President Wilson when he was in Milan. It was a result of his admiration of the poem and the design so artistically suggestive that Capron! decided on the name of White Eagle for his new and gigantic plane. It is asserted that the aviators jrho will make the trip intend to follow the route of Columbus across the*sea. They will fly from Italy to Cadiz, thence to the Azores and from the Azores to the American coast, alighting in the neighborhood of Washington. • Hundreds of mtn have lost their .lives in the dangerous business of trying out new planes and attempting to “make new records. The list is long

—and glorious. From this human sacrifice the world 4s going, to be emancipated, from the old-time methods-—rail-roads and steamships. Italy contributed to the honor roll. Captain Resnati lost his life through an avi-

atlon accident in America. He was one of the leading Caproni flyers, although .he vyasnot in a Caproni at the time of his death. During his lifetime he had made 2,0(10 flights. Pensuti. another Caproni flyer, recorded more than 3.300 flights. There are other Italian aviators who have flown thousands of hours —when the total of their many trips is.added up. In northern France the allied airmen, British, French and American, died heroically, helping defend their countries, but also, as they flew and worked, helped develop the' science of flying. Today the world has an accumulated knowledge of flying born of sacrifice and hard work; has great plants equipped to build machines; has thousands of young men who know how to fly, and is only waiting for /the signing of an international agreement on international aviation to begin an era of trans-oceanic, trans-continental flights that will help humanity solve its problem of transportation. Air Sovereignty Recognized. 2 jlefore the agreement is signed, however, more record-breaking flights will in all probability take place. The Atlantic will be crossed. Planes will fly across Europe. Military officials will be hauled from Paris to London, from London to Rome, from England to India even, with fair regularity, but these in the main will be extraordinary flights. The day of steady, week-in-and-week-out flights like regular sailings of ships and departures of trains will not come until the nations of the earth have entered into an aviation covenant. Customs laws, immigrant rulings, and the old regulations regarding frontiers must be revamped, probably by some organization acting for the league of nations. A report submitted by the commission appointed to consider plans for an international air code says that the British proposals have been in th® main accepted. An international council will be formed as a section of the league of nations';to handle all matters relative to aerial navigation. It has been decided that each nation is entitled to sovereignty over the air above it subject to the granting of permission for the passage of foreign aviators. There is to be no discrimination against any nation by another, air pilots will be licensed on an international basis and there will be international rules governing the right of way of airplanes and airships. .■ * , With these fundamentals arranged to the satisfaction of the powers, the era of flying will begin in earnest. And Caproni will be one, at least, of the Italian competitors for the building of passenger and freight planes, Caproni believes the business of building planes should be separate and distinct from operating them, just as shipbuilding is a separate business from running an international ship line. So he. will prpbftbly figure in world aviation as a builder rather than an operator. ''