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TFD:RAE

April 17, 1919.

[[underlined]]RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE ESTABLISHMENT[[/underlined]]
[[underlined]]OF A "DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS."[[/underlined]]

(Prepared by Direction of Brigadier-General William Mitchell, by Colonel Townsend F. Dodd.)

The demands of the late war have so hastened the development of aircraft and their uses that the following unusual condition exists at the present time, namely: In the pilots and airplanes existing as a result of war, the Unites States possesses a considerable body of trained personnel and considerable equipment of a highly specialized nature, and there is no developed commercial and civil demand for this personnel and equipment.
This condition is due to the fact that aviation development for military purposes has been highly forced, abnormal and unnatural. One of the unfortunate conditions has been that all countries engaged in the development and manufacture of aircraft have also been engaged in the war. The military development has therefore been carried to a high state of efficiency, while the commercial development remains practically at the same stage that it occupied in 1914.
As a result of these conditions, one of three things may