18 APRIL 1921 Article in the Chinese Press: PROPOSED NEW ISSUE OF AIR POSTAL STAMPS The Aeronautical Department is proposing to issue a new set of Air Postal Stamps which will be sold for 15, 30 and 50 cents respectively. The design of the stamps will be “an airship flying over the Great Wall”. They will be inscribed in English and in Chinese “Air Post Service”. These stamps will be on sale on the day that aeronautical traffic between Peking and Tientsin is inaugurated. 23 APRIL 1921 SEAPLANES ON UPPER YANGTZE. SERVICE BETWEEN ICHANG AND SZECHUAN PORTS. According to one of the local Japanese papers, a scheme is being launched to start a seaplane service between Ichang and Szechuan ports. It will be remembered, states the report, that some time ago a seaplane was tried at Nantao by a returned student from France, who will use the same machine in an attempt to make a flight on the Yangtze River between Ichang and Chengtu. The machine is a French 1916 type, and is capable of flying 140 li an hour, or from Ichang to Chungking in 10 hours. Thirty passengers and mails can be carried on each trip, the expense of which will be about $700. Each passenger will be charged $60 per trip and this together with the mail carrying fee is expected to bring in profits which will in a short time repay the cost of the machine, $30,000. The paper points out that, should the scheme prove to be successful, it will greatly facilitate traffic and other communications between Ichang and towns in the interior of Szechuan, and will prove a great convenience to everybody concerned. In conclusion, the paper states that the Szechuan railway project has been talked about for more than 20 years but nothing has resulted from it. Steamship lines have been partly successful, but not so much as their promotors like to see, and an aeroplane service has been mentioned, but so far nothing has materialized. (The North-China Herald)
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