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Another project, given up owing to recent disturbances, was one for a flying-boat service on the Nile. Services are also being considered from Malta to Italy, Geraldton to Derby in Western Australia, Sydney to Adelaide and Brisbane, and Melbourne to Hobart in Tasmania.
"O my people," he began, striving to speak clearly above the noise of the fire-jet, his voice sounding dull and heavy in that compressed atmosphere, "O Folk of the Merucaans, I greet you! There be many things to tell that you must know and believe. I have come back to you with great peril in my flying-boat to tell you of the upper world and all its goodness.
Then there is the flying-boat, developed under naval auspices. This boat takes wing from the water, and is regarded as the most desirable form of aircraft for sea purposes. It is a triumphant instance of our ingenuity, and is built in two sizes, both effective under the peculiar conditions which may dictate the use either of one or the other.
The Atlantic has been crossed by Alcock and Brown in a Vimy-Vickers biplane, and also by our NC-4 flying-boat under the command of Lieutenant Read, and by the big English dirigible R-34; but the Pacific, with its greater breadth, has seemed so impossible that it has never been attempted." "Why should it seem impossible?" "Because they can't carry sufficient gasoline to cross the Pacific."
About the same time the flying-boat, piloted by a Boston man, and the biplane, in control of two Englishmen, had reached Yokohama, Japan, within a few hours of each other. It was said that these contestants would wait there for the first steamship going to San Francisco, as they feared it would be impossible to fly across the great Pacific stretch of almost five thousand miles.
Another development which is being used by the navigators flying the Atlantic is the radio compass. This instrument may be turned toward a land or sea wireless station, of which the call is known, and it will register the bearing from the flying-boat to this station. It may be turned upon another station, and this bearing also charted.
He stroked his beard contemplatively, and then, fearing that they had not been seen, stepped onto the highest rock, bellowed loudly, and made wild motions with his arm. The flying-boat, which was only a few hundred yards distant, slightly altered its course, now heading toward them in a way that left no doubt that the steersman had detected their presence.
As the days went by, the boys, like almost everybody in the country, watched the newspapers eagerly for reports of the progress of the contestants in the big Air Derby around the world. Only four of the eleven aircraft to start had succeeded in getting across the treacherous Atlantic, two of these being dirigible balloons, one a flying-boat, and the other a Vickers-Vimy biplane.
American efforts to cross the Atlantic by air date back to the spring of 1914 when the flying-boat America was built to the order of Rodman Wanamaker. She was a large seaplane, a new departure in her time, and represented the combined effort of a number of the best seaplane designers in the world. Lieut.
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