Viewing page 6 of 200

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-5-

General Billy Mitchell's fighting heart good to see the creation of a separate air force -- a Department of Air Force, advocated by this great air prophet several decades ago. 

The air line pilots caution that, regardless of their legislation, the laws, the rules or the regulations that we may create to insure adequate air defense and adequate air reserves to back up such air defense, if we don't support such laws, rules and regulations with sufficient money to really do the job, our air fighting forces will gradually deteriorate, crumble, and disappear as they did after World War I. We must, if we allow this to happen, accept the terrible and unforgiveable responsibility of leaving our door wide open for the powerful and greedy forces of dictatorship and communism to enter -- striking through the air like snakes with wings when we least expect it. 

Let us exercise whatever economies we think proper and necessary, pay politics, if we must, but let us not neglect our air fighting forces. The citizenry of our country demands and insists that this not be permitted to happen. If we permit the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 to function as its planners and enactors intended it should, we need not worry about our civil aviation and our air line transportation two year from now, or five years from now, or for that matter, any number of years from now.

The key is to see that the best possible personnel are employed and appointed to all of the principal positions in our civil air regulatory setup and that sufficient money is appropriated to give them the wherewithal to do the job. Unless the salaries of those in key positions in our federal air regulatory agency are fixed at a level that will attract men of proper training and capabilities and keep them there, we are not pursuing a sound course, Penny-pinching policies in any branch of our country's aviation should be avoided. Too many of our federal civil air regulatory people use that agency merely as a stepping stone to better paying positions in the industry. This should be stopped. Salaries should be adequate to discourage this. It may seem harsh, but the air line pilots recommend that once a person accept a position with the federal civil air regulatory agency and resigns voluntarily, he be barred from employment with any aviation company for a period of sufficient length to make CAA or CAB employment on a temporary basis unattractive. 

Politics should be swept clean from our civil air regulatory agency in all respects. The Civil Aeronautics Board should surround itself with more dignity and should not be quite so easy to talk to. The Civil Aeronautics Board can well take a page on conduct and procedure from the venerable and far more seasoned Interstate Commerce Commission.

There is, of course, some criticism of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, but remember, gentlemen of this honorable Commission,