ON TAIL OF 'PLANE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 286, 2 December 1936, Page 23

ON TAIL OF 'PLANE.

MAIL FEES AVOIDED

NEW TRICK IN ALASKA.

LONDON, October 30,

Air mail operators in Alaska, according to reports which have been received, have had to cope with an ingenious method, devised by certain of those living near lonely landing grounds, in communicating with each other by air without paying anything in the nature of air mail fees.

The method has been as follows:—An individual would stroll on to a flying ground, and, on learning that an air mail aeroplane was about to leave for somo specified town or settlement not far off, would busy < himself scribbling, a brief surreptitious note on the ship's tail plane or fuselage.

The friend or friends who were "in the know" would then go to the aerodrome where the aeroplane was due to alight and, when it had landed, they would stroll over and read the message which their correspondent had penned hurriedly 011 tail or fuselage. But this method of communication without contributing anything to the revenue of the air mail i<=> being frowned upon heavily by the authorities, and any wily person who approaches an air mail machine with a view to pencilling a hurried note 011 its tail to be read by some friend at a neighbouring settlement is now gently but firmly removed from the vicinity.