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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 0322.PDF
AT last we can point with pardonable pride to a cross country flight, made by a British aviator in Great Britain itself and on a machine which, even though it may have its origin in a foreign country, is, nevertheless, a product of the skill and brains of the Englishman that Henry Farman, in spite of his French domicile, really is. Mr. Claude Grahame-White's magnificent flight may justly be called not only a British triumph but an epoch- making event. Since the science of aviation began in earnest to develop from the crudities of early experiment into a matter of everyday practicability, the public in England have had to take things far too much for granted to be good for the advancement of the movement. There are thousands, of course, who have followed the progress of the movement with great intentness, and have kept thoroughly abreast of all that has been doing, but it has necessarily been a very small minority of the people, because nothing of note has been done to bring home to that ubiquitous person, the man in the street, how much has really been done and how thoroughly practical a sporb aviation is becoming. True, Blackpool, Don- caster, and Brooklands have afforded an opportunity to at any rate a part of the people to see for themselves that the stories they read in the daily paper about the pioneers and their success in the solution of the problem of flight on the heavier-than-air machine, were not altogether tales evolved from the inner consciousness of correspondents. The lesson afforded by these meetings and demonstra tions was doubtless interesting, but at the same time only partly convincing, because it simply testified that it was possible for an aeroplane to leave the ground and remain in the air in the hands of a trained experimenter, for a certain length of time while soaring round and round a confined area of specially prepared ground. " Very wonderful, but merely a spectacle that is not likely to affect us personally for many years to come," was doubt less the verdict of the majority of those who have had the good fortune to witness any flying at all. Since these meetings, at which too it cannot be said that the native-born aviator distinguished himself in any remarkable manner, the public have heard a great deal of what has been happening abroad, and only a very little of what was being done in England, until even amongst those who have been keenly following the movement, disappointment was growing afresh at British backwardness. So little fuss has, indeed, been made by our own fairly numerous band of British aviators that the public as a whole might be excused for any loss of faith in the immediate future of this country as a forcing house for aeronautic development. But now all this is altered as the consequence of the splendid performance made by an aviator whom we are proud to hail as a fellow- countryman. Mr. Claude Grahame-White's wonderful flight—even though since eclipsed by Paulhan—has literally set all England talking about nothing else but British aviation and its practical possibilities for the benefit of everyday people. On Saturday it occupied the public mind even to the exclusion of the probable result of the Final Cup-tie—and it must be something of exceeding great interest in these decadent days of the early twentieth century that will take the minds of the masses off that terribly serious event. Our people, as a nation, have not believed in flight and have not, characteristically, gone out of their way to foster and encourage something that they have no belief in except as a risky and rather aimless sport for the very few. But now there is scarcely a person in the whole length and breadth of the country who has not a knowledge amounting to conviction that the art of flight is a very real and present development, with very little of the conjuring- trick business about it. To the plucky aviator himself we offer our heartiest congratulations on having achieved an historic performance and done such inestimable good to the movement for which we stand, even though we have to join with them our regrets that ill-luck should have prevented him from doing all that he set out to do. To the Daily Mail, too, is due no small meed of appreciation for its public-spirited encouragement of the movement in Great Britain. The prize for success in reaching Manchester, with London as the starting point, is a magnificent one from the purely monetary stand point, and though the cynical have been heard to say that the advertisement is worth the money, we think that this is taking an altogether unnecessarily narrow and unworthy view of the matter. It should not be forgotten that Lord Northcliffe stepped into the breach in the early days of motoring by guaranteeing the cost of the 1,000 Miles Trial, the tenth anniversary of which was celebrated only last week, and that this was done at a time when the future of automobilism in this country looked none too hopeful. The position of aviation has been very similar of late. Regarded by most people as the fad of a few cranks, cold-shouldered by officialdom, and with a marked disbelief in its practical future manifested by even some of its well-wishers, aviation was badly in need of something like the muni ficent prize offered by Lord Northcliffe's journal to give the interest a fillip. It is significant of the importance attached to flight by the donors that their prize should be far and away the largest that has been offered for a single feat, and that its terms should be so essentially British—British, that is, from the point of view of its having to be won in Britain. Even the Daily Mail cross-Channel prize was not quite as insular as this, inasmuch as either start or finish had to be made in a foreign country. While we express our admiration of Mr. Grahame- White's so nearly successful attempt to win the London- Manchester prize, we would also take the opportunity of again insisting upon the sterling work that is being done in an unostentatious manner by other aviators among our own countrymen. Many names, including, of course, that of the Hon. C. S. Rolls—now doing so splendidly for England down in the South of France—would have been trumpeted from the housetops for their achieve ments in the air if they were the nationals of some of our very good friends beyond the narrow seas. It may be that our national characteristics have something to do with this reticence, or possibly it is that our representa tive aviators are being drawn from a different class of the community to those who have accomplished most on the Continent. In France the successful flying men who are coming forward are largely of the mechanic class, estimable men in every way, but whose modesty is naturally not their most remarkable feature. It may be, too, that the trained mechanic—who has more to gain and less to lose—is likely to succeed rather more rapidly in mastering the practical side of flight than our own amateurs, but it may be held that what we lose in one direction is more than compensated in another.
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