[Footnote 1: For airships with gross gas capacity of 3,500,000 cubic feet and total load of 105 tons.] [Footnote 2: For machines with total load of 40 tons.] CHAPTER XI THE AIR AGE Although facts disappointed many over-sanguine expectations that the billions of dollars invested in aëronautics during the war would pay direct dividends already in 1919, the year brought us a long step nearer the age of universal flight. Meantime, commercial aviation is still a long way from the stage at which bankers regard its undertakings as good security for loans. [Illustration: CHART OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC SHOWING COURSE OF THE FLIGHT] [Illustration: THE MEN WHO WORKED WITHOUT GLORY TO MAKE THE FLIGHT POSSIBLE] Air routes have been opened up in most parts of the world. Captain Ross-Smith has shown, by his magnificent journey from England to Australia in a Vickers-Vimy aëroplane, that long-distance flights over the most out-of-the-way lands and ocean tracts can be made even under the present unsatisfactory conditions, before terminals, landing grounds and wireless stations are provided for air pilots and navigators. The Atlantic has been crossed four times, twice by a dirigible, once by an aëroplane and once by a flying boat. Aëroplanes have flown from England to India. Aircraft have been used for commercial purposes in every part of Western Europe, in most countries of North and South America, in Australia, India, Egypt and South Africa. Important exhibitions of modern aircraft, similar to automobile shows, have been held in London, New York, Paris, Amsterdam and elsewhere. To-day all the Great Powers can show commercial air services in full operation. Of these the most important are perhaps the triangular airways around London, Paris and Brussels. One French and two British companies operate daily between London and Paris; British craft travel backwards and forwards between London and Brussels three times a week; and French machines fly between Paris and Brussels every day. The London-Paris services have established a magnificent record for efficiency and regularity. Valuable and urgent freight of every kind, including furs, dresses, jewelry, documents, a bunch of keys, perfume, a grand piano and even a consignment of lobsters, have been delivered in safety. Forty pounds of assorted London newspapers are taken each morning to Paris, where they are sold in the streets on the day of publication instead of next morning, as was the case when they were forwarded by train and packet-boat. Leading London papers, such as the _Times_, the _Telegraph_, the _Morning Post_, the _Daily Mail_, and the _Daily Express_, have regular contracts with one of the companies.