With the night mail

It is the year 2000, and - powered by 'Fleury's Ray' - a host of transatlantic aircraft, most of them lighter-than-air (airships), are flying across the air waves. The narrator is on board a mail plane, en route from London to Quebec. The technicalities of the journey, the expertise of the crew, the radio communications they use, and the international beacons which guide the traffic, are described in impressive detail, until the Night Mail docks safely at its Receiving Tower twenty minutes ahead of schedule. This story was first published in the United States of America in McClure’s Magazine for November 1905.