I
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
Thursday, june 27. 1963
25th
(Editor's not: It was 25
years ago. on June 23. 1938.
that President Franklin
D. Roosevelt signed into
law tha Civil Aeronautics
Act legislation that era.
atad a Civil Aeronautics
board with complete au
thority over the nation"s
airlines. The following dis
patch goes back tor a com
parative look at U. S. com
mercial aviation in 1938.)
nmversary
Spotlights Tremendous
Growth
in Air
B
Travel
' By ROBERT J. SERLING
UPI Aviation Editor
Washington - CPU - It was
year when the airlines cut
coast-to-coast travel to 16
hours and proudly boasted
they were carrying nearly 2
million passengers annually,
i Twenty-five years later
they were carrying more
than 60 million passengers,
' the transcontinental trips
.were down to less than five
hours, and supersonic flight
of only two hours was a for
mal government-industry pro
ject. ,
The DC3 was the queen of
the airways in 1938. In fact,
the big technical aviation
news of the year involved the
initial test flights of the na
tion's first four-engine air
liners - the Douglas DC4 and
the Boeing 307, the latter to
become the world's first pres
surized transport,
i "Sovereign of the Skies,"
Douglas advertisements dub
bed the DC4. "It provides
pace for 42 passengers or
luxurious sleeping berths for
30. It had a bridal suite,
charm room for ladies, a sep
arate dressing room for men,
an electric kitchen, and a din
ing service up to the stand
ards of exclusive clubs. The
plane is sound-proofed, air
conditioned and steam-heated
with hot and cold running
water."
Only 25 years later, not a
single DC4 was flying in
scheduled U.S. airline service
although there still were
still about 200 DC3's operat
ing. Expert Denounces
Not everyone looked with
optimism on four engine
flight. One expert denounced
four-engine planes as "im
practical." He . said the air
lines didn't need bigger
planes because they couldn't
fill a 12 or 21 -passenger airliner.
"I'm worrying about where
they are going to get 40 or
SO passengers at a clip," he
wrote in unwitting anticipa
tion of the day when airlines
actually would worry where
they were going to get 125
or 130 passengers at a clip.
. The airlines in 1938 were
'George Fox College
Building Condemned
. Newberg (UPD George Fox
college will be barred by the
state fire marshal from hold'
ing classes this fall in the
three-story Wood-Mar hall.
College President Dr. Milo
Ross said the school faces a
serious crisis, since no funds
'are available to make needed
Improvements, e s t i mated to
cost from $50,000 to $100,-000.
carrying 3,500 passengers ev
ery 24 hours (in 1963, a single
large airline carries that
many every two hours). But
the industry was well aware
that the air travel market
was untapped. One study
showed that while the total
number of passengers carried
was just under 2 million, only
about 200,000 actually flew
enough times to reach the 2
million figure.
Fear was the chief obstacle.
American Airlines In 1938
stunned its competitors with
an advertising campaign
that dared mention an unmen
tionable subject safety.
American's ads, personally
written by President C. R.
Smith, carried the caption
"Afraid to Fly?"
Safety Begins
United wasn't quite that
daring, nut came out with a
delicately-worded bit of reas
surance that "It is United's
policy to fly at least a half
mile above any elevation on
its system."
In retrospect, many of the
safety -items taken for grant
ed today were unheard of 25
years ago. The federal govern
ment, for example, was just
beginning to test and evaluate
an instrument landing sys
tem. Hamilton-tSandard's big
project of 1938 was develop
ment of the first propeller
feathering device, to keep the
prop on a dead engine from
windmilling and creating con
trol problems.
Airport inadequacies were
a hot topic of the day, par
ticularly with bigger planes
around the corner. One na
tional magazine published an
article warning that only five
airports in the country were
capable of handling a plane
as big as the DC4 Cleveland,
Oakland, Memphis, New Or
leans and Wichita.
"The U.S. has hatched eagles
for the world's airways and
provided them with wrens'
nests," the magazine said.
Douglas didn't agree-and
proved it with the DC4 test
flights which showed that a
DC4 required no more land
ing or takeoff room than the
DC3.
The DC4 prototype used In
these flights carried a triple
tail like . the Constellation
that would follow it a few
years later. Douglas later
shifted to a single tail and
sold the 'prototype to the
Japanese government which
promptly crashed it into
Tokyo Bay.
Talk Mergers
Merger talks were in the
news in 1938 just as today.
TWA tried to buy Eastern
for $3.2 million and was
blocked only when Capt. Ed
die Rickenbacker raised
about the same amount to
purchase control of the air
line he was working for at
the time. Another merger
rumor of the day was a well
founded but never-to-materal-ize
report that TWA would
absorb Braniff, Delta and
Chicago and Southern.
That $3.2 million price tag
on Eastern underlined the air
lines' poor financial standing.
The same amount today
would be half the cost of a
single jet. The airlines need
ed customers so badly that
five of them started carry
ing wives free if accompa
nied by husbands. It was for
a one-month experimental
period but was dropped due
to an enormous lack of in
terest on the part of wives.
Nor was the infant industry
aided much by general apthy
on the -part of the federal
government. The old , bureau
of air, commerce, predecessor
of the CAB, had a total ap
propriation of $14 million for
fiscal 1938. That sum might
be compared with the current
federal aviation agency budg
et of $800 million.
The airlines in 1938 had
375 planes, 1,400 pilots and
300 hostesses or stewardesses.
iThey now have nearly 2.000
planes. 13.000 pilots and 10,
000 "flygirls.")
New Sleepers
The, most heavily-traveled
market was New York-Chicago,
which the airlines serv
ed with 44 daily scheduled
flights. On an average week
day in 1963, there are 140
scheduled trips between the
two cities.
For coast - to - coast trips,
American and TWA introduc
ed new sleeper planes, DC3's
with berths. But the idea nev
er really proved effective,
mainly because the berths cut
down seating capacity.
Some of the scheduled car
riers of the day have long
since passed into limbo. Boston-Maine
Airways, for ex
ample. Grand Canyon Air
lines. Hanford Air lines, May
flower Airlines. Miami-Key
West Airways. Wyoming Air
Service. TWA's corporate
name was Transcontinental
and Western Air. Chicago and
Southern would soon merge
with Delta and Pennsylanvia
Central would become Cap
ital. J
The civil aeronautics act of
1938 brought a measure of
benevolent control to the
struggling industry. Until the
law was passed, aviation au
thority was divided among
three agencies. The bureau of
air commerce, which was part
of the commerce department,
provided . regulatory activi
ties; the post office depart
ment awarded air routes and
airmail contracts, and the in
terstate commerce commis
sion fixed cargo and passen
ger rates.
Rules of Act
The 1938 act:
Made the airlines' routes
permanent and protected
from outside competition.
Provided air mail pay as
a regular federal subsidy in
stead of requiring competitive
bids, an outgrowth of the
Army's abortive attempt to
carry the mail when FDR
cancelled all private airmail
contracts.
Established an independ
ent civil aeronautics author
ity composed of an admin
istrator, a five-man civil aero
nautics board to regulate air
line economics, and an air
safety board, charged with in
vestigating accidents.
Two years later, the act
was amended to set up a civil
aeronautics administration un
der the commerce department
(predecessor of the FAA),
abolish the air safety board,
and continue the still-inde-pend
CAB with Its economic
regulatory powers plus ac
cident investigation.
Thus, June 23 actually was
the CAB's silver ; anniversary
more than the birthday ob
servance of a long-outmoded
law. But it still seems oppor
tune to honor legislation that
ended chaos among the air
lines and set the stage for
the progress that was to follow.
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