Abroad demobilization was less rapid, as it was in all other lines. The British, who had given particular thought to after-war aviation, immediately turned to converting all their valuable war material and experience into a national force which should assure England of the supremacy of the air as well as strength in her supremacy of the seas. France, the custodian of Germany's great aerial force, found more than enough work for all her men in taking care of the hundreds of surrendered machines. Both nations at the same time took long steps toward building up the civil machinery necessary for private, non-military flying. For several months, of course, there was a hiatus. Thought had been so concentrated on military aviation that the conversion to peace work proved slow. Only the most general plans had been made in any of the countries, and those by ardent supporters of aviation, who were forced to make the most earnest efforts to obtain consideration of the subject in the midst of all the vital problems of peace and reconstruction. Greatest of all the difficulties was that, as private flying had been prohibited during the war, there were, with the coming of peace, no rules and regulations ready for it. Also many great projects for international flights had to be postponed because of complete lack of international rules in this respect. Nevertheless, most spectacular and convincing flights followed one another in rapid succession. The most outstanding of these flights was, of course, the first crossing of the Atlantic by seaplane--a triumph of organized effort by the navy. At the same time all over the world flights took place with astounding frequency which illustrated, as little else could, the certain future of aviation. Seas, mountains, deserts, places otherwise almost impassable were traversed with ease and speed. Army fliers flew from the Atlantic to the Pacific within a few months of the signing of the armistice. It required but fifty hours of flying-time, just a fraction over two days. At that time no attempt was made to obtain speed, as the purpose of the trip had been to locate landing-fields and make aerial maps for future transcontinental flights. The four planes that made this trip might be considered as the pioneers of vast flocks of airplanes which within a short time will be winging their way from coast to coast. If, with machines built specifically for war purposes and with no special landing-fields or routes laid out, aviators could successfully travel from one coast to the other in fifty hours of flying-time, how much more rapidly will future trips be made when special touring-planes have been developed, routes and landing-fields are laid out, repair-shops are built, and the trip becomes a matter of routine rather than aerial experiments.