It will no doubt necessitate a double machine, and will need two pilots, one to relieve the other, and possibly several engines to ensure against stopping of the motor. Mr. Grahame-White has predicted that within twenty years we will be flying across the Atlantic in fifteen hours upon regular schedule between London and New York. Mr. Grahame-White once even went so far as to say that the ocean in a few years would only be used "to bathe in" but I think he might have added "and to fish in," and left us that consolation! Perhaps, backed by government aid, and with the co-operation of their naval vessels, a chain of ships could be stretched across the ocean, which would make it possible even now to fly with safety over the distance between Nova Scotia and Ireland, about two thousand miles. Already, Mr. Atwood who flew from St. Louis to New York, and Mr. James V. Martin, have seriously planned such a trip. Mr. Martin has submitted his plans to the Royal Aero Club of England. He proposes to keep in the track of steamers and to endeavour to secure the most favourable wind conditions possible. His machine is designed to have large floats and five powerful engines. Storms pass across the ocean with great rapidity and a fifty-mile-an-hour wind would so increase the speed of an aeroplane as materially to help it on its journey. The accomplishment of this great flight over the ocean will no doubt mean great things for the progress of the world but it also will require further development along the lines of a flying boat, where a substantial vessel will be provided, able to stand rough sea and yet able to rise and skim the surface of the water. Following up the success of my new hydroaeroplane, I have taken great interest in the idea of a flight across the Atlantic Ocean by aeroplane. I consider the flight possible, and I am willing to undertake the construction of a machine for the purpose, provided any of the aviators now considering flight wish me to do so. I am not prepared to give the details of such a machine as would be required to make the flight, but I simply express the opinion that the feat is possible and that under certain conditions I will undertake to furnish the equipment. CHAPTER IV FUTURE PROBLEMS OF AVIATION In a consideration of the final structure of the Coming Aeroplane, we pass into the realm of pure prophecy, for the aerial liners and dreadnaughts of the future are still snug in the brains of men like Rudyard Kipling or H. G. Wells. My part in the consideration of what is coming is here confined to the consideration of the immediate, or at least the not far distant, future. Biplanes will always be the standard machines in my opinion, because you can get more supporting surface for the same weight.