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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 0344.PDF
LONDON TO MANCHESTER* AND AFTER. Now that the great flight to Manchester has been accomplished, and the event has receded somewhat into the realms of past history, it is possible to get a truer perspective and arrive at conclusions with a much more open mind than could have been the case when the event was yet almost the sole topic of conversation during the latter half of last week. Then, although the whole nation was applauding the successful issue of Paulhan's plucky enterprise, there was a natural feeling almost of humilia tion that a foreigner had hurried over to our shores and done at the first time of asking something that our own representative had tried and failed at. Even now we are not sure that that feeling of humiliation can be satis factorily explained away. In the abstract we can see much cause for searchings of heart in the one salient fact that Great Britain has once more failed to act up to its past history and take the lead in a matter which so vitally concerns the world's scientific progress as aviation. We, who for many decades were the mentors of the nations in all that made for the development of civilisation and progress in science, art and commerce, have, say the pessimists, fallen from our high estate, and are now content to sit at the feet of our rivals and assimilate the knowledge which springs from their enterprise and invention. There may or may not be much in this—perhaps there is, but it is not to be expected that the schoolmaster will remain for ever superior in every branch of knowledge to all his pupils, or that those pupils will never evolve anything at all from their own initiative. The most he can expect is to remain superior to them in the sum total of knowledge and experience, and it would be a bold man who would proceed to prove that we are not even yet premier among the nations in that respect. If that is so, although it is not good for our amour propre to be badly beaten, it need not be taken as a sign of national decadence. As a plain matter of fact, we have plenty to con gratulate ourselves upon, even though the representative of our friends across the Channel has handsomely beaten our own man and taken the plum of all the flight prizes away from us just when it seemed most likely to remain here. We most heartily congratulate M. Paulhan and France upon having secured the prize, and we freely accord them all possible honour for a magnificent achievement. Indeed, we will go much farther than that and assert that it was best and fairest that the event should have concluded as it did. We shall not be accused of undue bias when, to point our argument, we say that in the case of the cross-Channel flight it was far more fitting for M. Bleriot to have achieved the distinction of being the first to cross, than it would have been had Latham succeeded in his first attempt. In the one case, the man had been experimenting for many months with the object of developing a practical machine. At the eleventh hour, so to speak, another competitor —not himself a designer—appeared on the scene, almost on the spur of the moment, to fail, and made room for the man who had been working quietly and steadily towards his end since long before the bare idea occurred to the other. To a little less extent the same argu ment applies in the case of the London-Manchester flight; and again we say that, reviewing all the circum stances, Paulhan had—if we may be allowed to put it in that way—the greater right to win the prize. Not that we should not have been far better pleased had Mr. Grahame- White s plucky attempts been crowned with success. It goes without saying that we had rather have seen him or any other of our British aviators win this most important contest; and nothing in the manner of M. Paulhan's success can be advanced in detraction of what we said last week regarding Mr. Grahame-White's brilliant attempt, and subsequent sportsmanlike behaviour that has rightly raised a perfect wave of appreciation throughout the civilised world. The fates have ruled that things should be as they are, and there is no reason why the friends of British aviation should not be quite well pleased that things have been ordered thus—particularly if a ready response to the Grahame-White testimonial instituted by the Royal Aero Club indicates that British pluck will ever receive due recognition at home. Now, with regard to some other aspects of this the most important of all aerial events and its influence upon the future of aviation. While we do not hold any brief for the Daily Mail—so far as our observation goes, it is quite capable of conducting its own case—we must put it on record that Lord Northcliffe and those associated with him are treating aviation and its development in rather more than a liberal spirit; they are treating it in an eminently broad and even statesmanlike way. A prize, the most important ever offered by any journal or private person to any modern sport or science, has been won :. and after the nine days' wonder has had time to subside, the natural thing to occur is a marked reaction of feeling, not only among the public, whose wonder and admiration of an extraordinary feat has been manifested in a manner almost foreign to the national characteristics, but among the actual participants in the movement as well. With this undoubtedly in mind, and with a desire to maintain and? stimulate interest and development which is beyond all praise, the Daily Mail now comes forward with a further _^io,ooo. And another point in which we see something which is admirable is that conditions are to be imposed that are by no means impossible or even remote of realisation, but are yet sufficiently onerous to make it a matter of certainty that our present-day knowledge must be vastly improved before the prize can be won. What the exact conditions, which will be laid down for the guidance of competitors-- for the new Daily Mail prize are likely to be we cannot for the moment say, though we refer to the matter in a. separate article on another page, and also put forward in brief an idea of our own. Nothing has been definitely- settled yet, though the details are now being actively discussed, and the suggestions of experts courted, so that a definite pronouncement may be expected almost at once. Before we leave the subject of this last great flight and its aftermath, we feel that a word of praise is due to the many who by their whole-hearted assistance made the achievement itself possible. Motorists volunteered their services, the L. and N.W. Railway Co. did all and more than could have been expected of them; in fact, everyone who could be of the slightest use was only too willing to incur trouble and in many cases- expense to help along the new movement. The whole thing has been by way of a revelation to many who had begun to think that aviation was regarded in Great Britain with something approaching indifference. And the whole thing, too, has resulted in multiplying a thousand fold the belief of the public in the new era that is now rapidly opening up. 342
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