86 Miracles Ahead! 



passenger revenue was considered the main source of income 

 at first freight revenue eventually exceeded it. In 1941 about 

 5 per cent of the air lines' revenue came from air express 

 or around i per cent of the railway express shipped. Thus the 

 air lines' express business can be greatly expanded and still 

 not make too much of a cut in railroad business. 



The case of the airplane as a cargo carrier is one of simple 

 arithmetic according to Wolfgang Langewiesche. "An air- 

 plane can make 20 round trips while ground transport makes 

 one," he explains. "One ton of cargo space in an airplane is 

 therefore worth 20 in a train or a truck, even without count- 

 ing the value of time saved for the load. Between Burma and 

 Chungking, where road transport was difficult but where 

 cost was not counted, a Douglas transport was considered 

 equivalent to 137 trucks. Between New York and Chicago 

 the same sort of arithmetic holds true; mass transport is pos- 

 sible by air because the airplane is a fast worker." 



Charles Froesch, chief engineer of Eastern Airlines, adds 

 that "a cargo airplane should be a vehicle to carry merchan- 

 dise not only at the lowest possible cost, but at the highest 

 possible speed, as speed is the commodity which is paid for in 

 air transportation." Noting that first-class rail express costs 

 ten to twelve cents per ton mile, Mr. Froesch said the total 

 cost of airplane shipping after the war would be brought "well 

 below 1 5 cents per ton mile." 



Rapid peacetime progress in the cargo- and passenger-plane 

 field will be possible because of the powerful engines and 

 other equipment produced during World War II. The horse- 

 power of one of the three standard engines now used in our 

 Army fighting planes has been increased more than 30 per 

 cent since 1939 without any increase in the size of the engine 

 and with a sharp reduction in the weight per horsepower. 

 These engines all will provide high take-oif power to get 

 planes in the air with heavy loads, low fuel consumption at 



