Global Transportation 79 



the extra load of gasoline which must be carried. The most 

 economical air speed at moderate altitudes, he adds, is likely 

 to remain below one hundred and eighty miles per hour. 

 A four-hour flight from Chicago to New York costs forty 

 dollars, while a two-hour flight would cost sixty dollars. Mr. 

 Warner wonders whether people will pay an extra twenty 

 dollars to save two hours' flying time. 



Manufacturers have different ideas about the size of future 

 sky liners. One concrete piece of evidence is the huge four 

 hundred-passenger craft of Consolidated Vultee. A mock up 

 of this plane has been built, and the problems of constructing 

 such a giant air liner are being solved by Consolidated engi- 

 neers. 



New Shipping Centers 



The flat mercator-type map no longer tells the story of dis- 

 tances in the coming Age of Air. On this map the shortest 

 route between Washington and Tokyo appears to lie close 

 to San Francisco. Pilots know, however, that the shortest 

 route is a "Great Circle" course which passes over the Great 

 Lakes, across Canada, and skirts Siberia. And the shortest 

 route from Washington to Moscow via the "Great Circle" 

 course just misses Greenland. Because the world's most impor- 

 tant nations lie in the Northern Hemisphere, these "Great 

 Circle" routes pass near or across the North Pole. The icy 

 Arctic regions will become the "crossroads of commerce" in 

 the postwar Age of Air. 



"When we use the globe and 'Great Circle' measurements," 

 says Colonel Edward S. Evans, president of Evans Products 

 Company, "we find the Arctic Ocean, not the Atlantic, is the 

 sea to be flown over. The Arctic becomes a Mediterranean 

 between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Chicago, 

 Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other western cities are 



