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Aviation History
1909
1909 - 0596.PDF
OCTOBER 2, 1909. IT is a somewhat remarkable thing that in France circumstances are apt to produce dramatic effects. Thus, at the very time when the apotheosis of all the work that the pioneers of flight have been doing for hundreds of years past was about to be revealed by the opening of the Paris Aero Show by President Armand Fallieres, the funeral service of Captain Ferber, who gave his life for the cause he loved, was almost due to take place at Boulogne. That drew attention to the part of the price that has had to be paid in connection with flight by heavier-than-air craft, and that is the department of the science of aerial navigation which it is the prime object of the Exhibition to reveal. For there is no gainsaying that in the matter of ballooning and of dirigible ballooning, the Frankfort Exhibition must be adjudged infinitely more representative and of vastly greater scientific interest than the Paris Show. At the very time that the President of the Republic entered the Grande Palais, however, there were whispered to him the grave tidings of the unhappy disaster to the dirigible balloon " La Republique," so that, as it were, there was a token of the toll that has been exacted by both branches of aerial locomotion. But while on this particular point of the price that humanity is paying for the admiralty of the air, we may recall that in the course of a recent leader in FLIGHT, attention was drawn to the remarkably few lives that have been lost in the development of the heavier- than-air machine. That statement stands to-day. Furthermore, considering what has been achieved and that the achieving of it has been the constant launching into the unknown, dirigible ballooning (has demanded relatively few victims, while ordinary spherical ballooning has long since advanced to a stage when, provided due precaution be observed, it is quite one of the most safe of sports. Furthermore, it is somewhat unfortunate that " La Republique" should have been ordered to go to make her fatal voyage when it has been especially under- stood that the engineer who designed the craft, and those who captained her, were alike undesirous of going. We do feel that this is one of those unfortunate cases wherein the military spirit of saying this or that particular thing shall be done, has been introduced inadvisedly and pre- maturely into aerial navigation. It has been the fault of our Navy that our commanders do not have to under- stand engineering. That is to say, they give the orders as to what they want out of the vessel, not understanding the difficulties of being able to meet those demands. We feel that in the case of the dirigible balloon " La Republique," four lives have been thrown away. Whether they have or not, however, cannot mend the matter, so at least we may draw one fine lesson from it of benefit to England, and that is this, that there was not a single daily paper in France that one could pick up that had not its comments, words not of pessimism in a moment of national disaster, but of encouragement and inspiration to use that disaster only to forward the science. There was no lamentation though there was ample sympathy. All the accounts are to the effect that the lives were given in the cause of science, and in the cause of the country. For the reason that we have yet many things to discover and many risks to take, it is well that this attitude should be recorded by way of a standing example. It may be that one day a British dirigible will come by disaster in the course of some useful woi k, and should that hour ever come along, at least it will console us to think that there is a fine precedent of conduct behind us in the example set by Germany over the Zeppelin disaster, and now by France in the mishap to " La Republique." As to the industry, surely it should astound any Britisher, who imagines that aeroplaning is mere toying, if he were to go to the Paris Exhibition and to discover the evidences not only of perfect workmanship and superb design, but also of the tremendous amount of capital and brains that are embarked in the service of this science. The first lesson of this current Show should be surely to impress on the minds of all and sundry this fact—aerial navigation cannot go back, cannot stand still, but must inevitably go forward. From whichever point of view we review the matter, we find that flight is now on a commercial basis. Let us study the number of manufacturers engaged in it. There is not a single world-famous motor manufacturing firm that has not striven to evolve either an engine for use on a dirigible, or for service on an aeroplane. As examples of engineering they are a joy to study, while it is a proud thing to be able to record that quite one of the most admired pieces of mechanism in the whole Show are the British-built Wolseley engines, alike for aeroplanes and dirigibles. In the matter of design, it cannot be said that there is anything very radically original at the Paris Show, and it may be in part that that is to be accounted for by the fact that the Show is held at an awkward season. It comes in the very midst of the competition season, and the staffs of the aeroplane manufacturers pure and simple are not so large that it is possible to keep spare men and machines away from the factory in order to be in a great show and on a field of competition at one and the same time. Even at the Paris Show, the Voisin Company, for example, does not display its latest machine, though that is doubtless due in part to the somewhat invidious arrangements of some of the exhibits, whereby, though there are four so-called " Stands of Honour," that pioneer firm is not represented on any one of the quartette. We contend that it is a mistaken policy, in any case, to have stands of honour. What one may style the system of cliques has been ever much in evidence in the past among motor manufacturers, especially in France, and it will be a regrettable thing if such a policy is to be pursued in the future concerning the new industry, which deals also with the problem of locomotion. One imagines that it would be better to have an Exhibition of this sort in the month of December, allowing it to replace the yearly motor show, which is an enterprise not likely to be revived in Paris, for once the series of these things is broken it is difficult to resume them. The month of December should be the more convenient for visitors from abroad; also in the main the flying competition season should be over by then, or at least there should be a hiatus in it before the opening of the meetings that are sure to be arranged in the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean in the early months of the year. Further- more, December is a month removed from the time of our own Show in the spring, so that the two events would not clash in any way. Meantime, since the Juvisy meeting is about to take place, all who have leisure may be recommended heartily to go across the Channel to inspect this very fine display, which offers many suggestions of interest alike in the organisation of the Exhibition and in the aircraft displayed there. 602
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