The advantages of air transportation are most apparent over long distances. The air mail flies from New York to San Francisco in thirty-six hours, whereas a train requires nearly four days to make the same trip. The United States, through the efforts of the Post Office and the Department of Commerce, is being covered with a network of air mail routes, and it is only a matter of the public using this service before nearly every city in the country will be served by airlines. VIII TWO EMERGENCY JUMPS By the first of April our organization was well under way and about a week before the inauguration day we took two planes over the route to make any final arrangements necessary. On April fifteenth at 5:50 A.M. I took-off from the Air Mail Field at Maywood on the first southbound flight, and that afternoon we sent two ships north with the inauguration mail from St. Louis, Springfield and Peoria. During the summer months most of our route was covered during daylight, but as winter approached the hours of night flying increased until darkness set in a few minutes after we left the field at St. Louis. With night flying and bad weather our troubles began. Our route was not lighted at first and the intermediate airports were small and often in poor condition. Our weather reports were unreliable and we developed the policy of taking off with the mail whenever local weather conditions permitted. We went as far as we could and if the visibility became too bad we landed and entrained the mail. One of the worst conditions we met with was in flying from daylight into darkness. It was not difficult to fly along with a hundred foot ceiling in the daytime, but to do so at night was an entirely different matter, and after the night set in, if the weather became worse, it was not possible to turn around and return to daylight. With all of our difficulties, however, the mail went through with surprising regularity. During the first five months of operation we made connections on over ninety-eight per cent of our trips. There are only two conditions which delay the air mail: fog and sleet. If the fog is light or local, and the sleet not too heavy, the planes continue even then. But when the ground becomes invisible and the fog covers the terminal fields, or when sleet freezes thickly on wings and wires, the planes cannot continue. In such cases the mail is entrained and usually reaches its destination at least as soon as it would have if sent by train in the first place. Almost every day, in some section of the United States, mail pilots are flying over fog and through storms and rain to bring their ships through on schedule time. The mail plane is seldom delayed and then only by impossible weather conditions. In the future these delays will become fewer as radio navigation and instruments for blind flying improve, until it will be possible for the pilots to keep to their schedules under the worst conditions and in comparative safety.