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From 1932 to 1942 (10 years), the wing loading on commercial transport airplanes increased from 16.3 lbs. per square foot to 32.9 lbs. per square foot. (Douglas DC-3 and Lockheed Lodestar aircraft were the principal air line airplanes through 1942.)  From 1942 to 1947 (5 years), the wing loadings increased from 32.9 lbs. to 63.7 lbs. per square foot.

The percentage increase in wing loading of commercial transport planes from 1932 to 1942 was approximately 100%. In the five year period from 1942 to 1947, the wing loading increased another 100%. The Boeing Stratocruiser, which will have a wing loading of 73.6 lbs. per square foot (at present undergoing tests for certification as an air line transport), adds another appreciable percentage increase in wing loading. Ask any CAA Airport Division official how many airports in the U.S. are suitable and safe for use by the Boeing Stratocruiser. The answer may prove a startline surprise.

During his term of office, 1912-1920, Vice President Thomas R. Marshall said, "What tihs country needs is a good five-cent cigar."  The air line pilots say in 1947, "What our air line transportation needs is a good, stable, safe-performing air line plane that is in the class of a good, day-in-and-day-out air line work horse, with lower wing loading, and one with a top fixed stalling speed that isn't border-lined on hot performance characteristics and safety. And above all, an airplane that is geared, and definitely, to the airport development of our country. To prove this point, I quote verbatim from a statement of the U.S. Conference of Mayors contained in a letter dated September 18, 1947, to Administrator T. P. Wright of the Civil Aeronautics Administration:

"Safety is one of the prime elements upon which depends the future growth of commercial and private flying and the general acceptance of aviation by the public. Uniformity in airport facilities and the consequent general knowledge of flying limitations at all corresponding airports will aid materially in attaining standards of safety in which the public can have confidence....

"It is unsound economically to make the large investments required for major airports without the assurance that the ports will not become obsolete before amortization of their capital costs. This consideration alone requires the fixing of airport standards.

"The investment of public funds in airports by taxing bodies such as the Cities, the States and the Federal Government is absolutely unwarranted unless a useful life of the improvement is assured. It is waste, pure and simple, if public funds are expended without the certainty that the airports constructed with those funds will serve the public during their useful life .....

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