Page:The Fun of It.pdf/113

Rh made in the past few years, there is many a commu­nity whose shingle might be hung out for the air traveler. Large white or chrome yellow letters painted on some flat roof should announce the names of all progressive cities and towns to the flying world. An arrow pointing the direction to the nearest landing field is also desirable.

Imagine automobiling without signs! Imagine trying to recognize a new town, the way flyers do—a hundred-mile-an-hour look at a checker-board of streets and roofs, trees and fields, with highways and railroads radiating and crisscrossing and per­haps a river or two to complicate—or simplify—the geography lesson.

On my own transcontinental air-gypsying, I saw few towns properly named. In some, the airway sign boards had been so neglected that the lettering was dirty and almost illegible; in others the only words visible from above spelled the names of cer­tain kinds of pills or liniment. The Chambers of Commerce in many communities may be asleep to the value of aerial advertising, but the patent med­icine vendors are not. They often paint their signs on sloping roofs to be read alike by those who pass above or below.

Flying low to make out signs on railroad stations or other buildings is dangerous, yet sometimes has to be done. I dare say that in time legislation will make air marking compulsory everywhere, as it al­ready is in Maryland, for instance, for towns with more than 4000 inhabitants. The Department of