460 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 5 



have recourse to retractable landing-gear, extreme comfort of the 

 passengers, etc. 



The hydroplaning surfaces can be attached to the bottom of the 

 fuselages after the airplane is put down on the water. This ar- 

 rangement permits the airplane to rise from the water with a light 

 load in order to regain the nearest airdrome or seadrome. 



As you see, I have always remained faithful to the airplane for 

 these great commercial routes. The reasons which have lead me defi- 

 nitely to adopt this solution are the following : 



All things being equal, the airplane has greater commercial effi- 

 ciency, for the weight and the resistance of the fuselage are always 

 less than those of a hull furnished with pontoons permitting it to 

 take off. 



Furthermore, the safety of a hydroplane is not greater than that 

 of a multimotored airplane, provided that the latter can land on 

 water without danger and remain afloat for a sufficiently long time. 

 As a consequence, a multimotored airplane would rarely be so com- 

 pletely crippled as to be unable to get back on the air lane. If such 

 were the case, however, the damage is certainly irreparable with 

 the facilities at hand, and the ability of the hydroplane to take off 

 again does not therefore give it any marked advantage. 



Finally, the operation of taking on and discharging passengers is 

 nmch slower with a hydroplane than with an airplane. 



These are then sufficient reasons to explain my preference for the 

 airplane in the form of a marine airplane; that is, one being able 

 to land on the water and even to take off again if lightened. 



AIRPLANE CARRIERS 



A few words should be said about airplane carriers, which some 

 propose instead of floating islands. They would not be able to 

 render the same services, for in the first place the reduced dimensions 

 of their platforms, although sufficient for combat or reconnaissance 

 airplanes, would not be so for the great commercial airplanes heavily 

 loaded. Furthermore, they could be used only with difficulty in bad 

 Aveather, as like all boats they follow the motion of the waves, and 

 the necessity of having their boilers always under pressure to pre- 

 vent drifting would make their use very burdensome. I will not 

 therefore speak of them further. 



On the map (pi. 1) you see the proposed positions of the sea- 

 dromes, in particular the four which will make the bridge between 

 Europe and North America. You see that the distance which sep- 

 arates them, and from them to the continents, is 600 to 650 miles, say 

 about 1,000 kilometers. 



