“WHAT TO DO NEXT?”
IN the autumn of 1928, I returned from the little transcontinental jaunt. At Los Angeles I had visited the National Air Races of that year and renewed acquaintance with many friends, some of whom I had not seen since flying student days.
Now I was back in New York, ready to take up whatever the next job might be. Flying the Atlantic for some reason brought many offers of various types of work. Why such an expedition should fit one to go into a totally different occupation than any one has ever taken part in before, I have never comprehended. Offers from advertising agencies and other enterprises with which I was entirely unfamiliar came to me as they do to any other news figure of the moment. There were some opportunities to enter commercial aviation, too.
After Colonel Lindbergh’s flight, the United States seemed to awake to the possibilities of air transportation. People spoke of it as a “coming thing,” not realizing that commercial flying had been quietly developing for several years and that a network of airlines already existed. To many persons this expansion simply meant interest in aviation stocks and none in the possibility of their actually using airplanes for travel themselves.
Ray Long, guiding spirit of Cosmopolitan Magazine, asked me to join its staff as Aviation Editor. With “Cosmo’s” enormous circulation I welcomed
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