Air Flivver

It Is on Its Way

Nikola Tesla’s $1,000 vertical-rising plane which can fly horizontally at great speed and alight indoors through a large window is as yet an inventor’s dream.

But Bert Hinkler’s flight to Australia from England shows that the flivver plane is on its way. Here 12,000 miles were spanned in a $3,500 vehicle in 15 days at a cost for food, fuel and lodging of only two cents a mile — less than half the cost of first-class passenger travel by rail in the United States.

Mass demand will cut plane costs as it has cut the costs of automobiles. And when the returns are all in it will be found that American production will be far in the lead in the one instance as it now is in the other.