AVIATION: Strange Cargo

Henry Ford announced last fortnight that war or no war, he is in the airplane-manufacturing business for keeps. So is General Motors.

Pessimists think that the U.S.’s enormously expanded aircraft capacity will produce little after World War II except unemployment. Optimists think otherwise. Some expect the personal plane to become as common as the automobile. (General Motors, through its subsidiary General Aircraft Corp. in Lowell, Mass., is already experimenting with a “spin-proof” cheap plane.) But to absorb U.S. big-plane capacity, a whole new industry must come to the aid of the passenger transport lines. Confidently expected by many an airman, the new industry, air freight, is already out of swaddling clothes.

When Pan Am’s Philippine Clipper arrived in Manila last week, on board were over 300 items of freight. On Pan Am’s run from San Francisco to Singapore, with stopovers at Honolulu, Midway, Wake, Guam and Manila, about 12,000 ton-miles of freight flow weekly. During the first seven months of this year, the Clipper carried over 270,000 ton-miles of freight, a 20% jump over 1940.

Two years ago Manila was 16 freight days from the U.S. The fact that it is now six freight days distant by Clipper has made a difference to every businessman in the Philippines. Clippered samples precede many a cabled order. The U.S. Navy uses the Clipper to take out extra submarine parts; the Army uses it for flying instruments, maps, charts. Movie audiences in Manila now see newsreels almost as soon as San Franciscans. Manila doctors Clipper X-ray films to U.S. specialists, who send their diagnoses back by cable. Human ashes go home by Clipper for U.S. burial. Last Christmas President Manuel Quezon Clippered 42 boxes of cigars to U.S. politicians.

Other items from a recent westbound cargo manifest:

> To Honolulu went mica tape, samples of rayon, gold-plated watch bands, wedding-announcement cards, a tube of radioactive phosphorus, brake cable, auto gears.

> To Wake went a dental plate (upper), travel clock, Dr. Scholl’s foot powder, silver necklace clasp, wool coat.

> To Guam went an artificial leg, blueprints, electrical appliances, beaded handbag.

> To Manila went 238 gilt jeweled watches (value: $3,022), 46 gold jeweled watches (value: $2,504), serum blood grouping, parts for pyrometer equipment, examination papers, 826 feet of motion-picture film, fountain pens and pencils, TIME magazine, shoe-machine awls and needles, Leghorn hatching eggs (to improve the island strain), two surgical stockings, orchids, many another item.

> To Singapore for relay to Batavia went 200 grams vitamin BI (value: $1,340), shipping documents, samples of wire brushes, samples of butter flavor, glow lamps, snap-fastener samples.

Like a railroad train in the ’60s, each Clipper arrival is big news. In Manila, society weddings are timed to coincide with the arrival by Clipper of New York bridesmaids’ gowns. A game at the Manila Polo Club was on schedule recently because a box of polo balls, delayed in shipment, was replaced by another brought by Clipper.

With these results in the Pacific, Pan Am last week announced plans for the Atlantic. This week the company starts an air-express service to Lisbon. When its new African run reaches Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, Pan Am’s freight and passenger service will girdle three-fourths of the world. Most airmen think the Africa-Singapore gap will be closed before the war is over.