New planes can be bought for a little more than $2000 and up. Hangar space comes to from twenty-five to fifty dollars a month and up. Obviously a very large plane will cost more to store and handle than a small one. A plaything with a wing spread of seventy-two feet, such as Friendship had, requires as much space as a whole fleet of trucks, and specialized space at that. It is not simply a matter of a building in which to house the plane. There should be a well equipped field outside, with runways, lights, and facilities ranging all the way from a filling station to a machine shop. And for all of this overhead one naturally has to pay. The actual cost of plane maintenance depends entirely upon the amount of use made of it, exactly as with an automobile. I don’t believe any reliable estimates of up-keep are available. [Illustration: description: Drawing of mermaids waving at Friendship airplane caption: BETWEEN US GIRLS Weed in _New York Evening World_ ] [Illustration: description: Photo close shot of Earhart looking out a window caption: FIRST LOOK AT BURRY PORT © _P. & A. Photos_ ] The number of hours a motor can run, without overhauling, depends not only on the motor itself but the character of the attention given it. Meticulous care of a plane’s power plant is vital. It is not that the motors themselves are any more complicated than the engines of large automobiles, but there simply aren’t any service stations 10,000 feet in the air. An oversight on a highway means only inconvenience; one aloft means inconvenience, too—the inconvenience of coming down where there may be a landing field or there may not. All of which information may sound indefinite. But I believe exactly the same uncertainty applies to automobiling. Few people who have one or two cars can say exactly what a year’s operation costs, when depreciation, replacement and performance are figured. The cost of upkeep of any machine depends in a great measure upon the amount of time the owner himself devotes, or has devoted, to its care and the degree of skill employed. Withal, I believe that the maintenance of a plane is probably very little greater than that of a similarly priced automobile. There is a belief, I suppose (and perhaps it is well founded) that women shrink more than do men from the alleged hazards of aviation. Inheritance, training and environment seem to make women less aggressive than men, although in real courage I think they are equals. So much of woman’s excitement through the ages has been pushing the men into adventure that they have the habit of hanging back a little. We can’t infer Lady Macbeth lacked courage or ability because she herself didn’t do the job she wanted Macbeth to do.