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Aviation History
1911
1911 - 0004.PDF
I/XICHT] London flight by Mr. Willows in the tiny airship of his own construction, and his later flight to France. Also a good deal of excellent—if unpretentious—work has been done by the British Army authorities down at Aldershot. Against these undeniably meritorious performances have to be placed the handful of disasters that have overtaken the several types of dirigibles on the Continent. In great measure the triumph of the aeroplane has been due to the vast improvements that have been effected in engine design since the opening of last year. The exigencies of the aeroplane render it neces sary that engines should be of the lightest possible construction compatible with reliability, and it was in striving after this essential combination that the designers of early flight engines met with difficulties. Much has been learnt during the year of the many and complex problems confronting the designer in search of the ideal flight motor ; and these lessons have been so intelligently applied that there are now engines suitable for the specialised work they are called upon to perform, and rapidly gaining that degree of reliability which characterises their heavier sisters of the car. When the year opened, it is not too much to say there was not a single British aviation motor that could hold its own with the best of the French products. Now, unless we are much mistaken, the position is quickly being reversed and the British motor is being brought on top. At the very least, credit may be taken by the home industry that it is producing motors fully equal to the best the world has to show. In flying men, too, this country has been fortunate, for whereas a year ago she could not claim a single aviator of highest class, she now has several who can hold their own with the most finished exponents of France and America. True, with the exception of the Gordon- Bennett Trophy, Britain has won no first rank prizes ; but in most cases she can claim that if her representatives were beaten they were not disgraced. It has to be remembered in this connection that the British flying school has been the growth of little more than a single year. In any case the representative flying men of this country have done well enough to spur the nation on to renewed efforts during the coming year. JANUARY 7, 1911. In one respect 1910 has seen Great Official Britain still lagging behind the nations in Government .. , i,E,a & , lU . Encourage- tne race 'or tne supremacy of the air. As ment. we have taken "occasion to point out at intervals during the year, the State has not done all that it might have been expected to do for the furtherance of the new science, especially when it is- borne in mind that it introduces a new factor in the relations of the Powers upon which much may hang in the not distant future. The War Office, it is true, has continued its experiments with renewed energy as far as ever its funds have permitted ; and with the assistance ef private individuals has acquired the Clement-Bayard and Lebaudy dirigibles, while also taking a more or less dilettante interest in the aeroplane. In comparison with France and Germany, however, the home authorities have unquestionably cut a very sorry figure, keen as the actual personnel has undoubtedly been at Farnborough, Aldershot and Bushey to push forward at a far greater pace than authorised by the Government. A gleam of hope has, on the other hand, appeared during the period under review, and, curiously enough, this has been brought about as the direct result of pro posed International legislation affecting aviation. The British Government was actively represented at the International Conference that first met in May last, and was a party to the drawing up of the draft Convention that aimed at defining in black and white the elements of what International legislation will probably have to be on the subject of aerial craft. Postponement from May to De cember was largely brought about on the suggestion of the British delegates, on the ground that their Govern ment desired time carefully to study for themselves the further points involved; while when the fresh sitting of the Conference fell due, postponement was again an nounced sine die. Apparently, in fact, the past year has not only witnessed the first practical attempt at the em bodiment of an aviation convention in the Law of Nations, but it has brought home to the highest authori ties in this Kingdom a recognition that the flying era has arrived, and that every wideawake country must either welcome it with open arras or fall lamentably behind ia> the struggle for supremacy. CAPTAIN BERTRAM DICKSON. IN the midst of a sad time in the aviation world it is pleasant indeed to record the satisfactory progress of at least one victim of the air. Captain Bertram Dickson, who, as our readers need no reminding, met with a collision while flying at the Milan Meeting last September, is now sufficiently convalescent from his serious injuries to be allowed to take a little exercise and receive an occasional visitor. It will be some little time, perhaps, before he is out and about again, but if appearances are any guide to health, he is certainly on the high road to speedy and complete recovery, which is not only a tribute to his extraordinary constitution, but is also by no means an incidental testimonial to the efficient and indefatigable nursing that he has received at the hands of his sister, Mrs. Will Gordon, who will be remembered as a regular visitor at most of the flight meetings that Captain Dickson attended. But for either one of three separate things, in the doctor's opinion, Captain Dickson would have succumbed had he been an ordinary man or been left to the good offices of the ordinary nurse, who in Italy, it seems, is strongly disinclined to sacrifice her Mass for her patient. Now, however, all that is over, and this country has been spared one of her best men, whose services, we hope, may long be devoted to the furtherance of the industry. Captain Dickson's enthusiasm for aviation is unabated, but it is not now, and never has been, in any way akin to a mere love for sensation. In the early days of the modem movement he was attracted to flight even more as a science than as an art; but realising that it is essential not only to learn to fly but to possess a machine in order to find out all the details of such an elusive subject, he took up the practice of aviation with characteristic thoroughness. One of the first Englishmen to become an expert pilot, he was als«- one of the first men in France to demonstrate that the engine cotlld be stopped in mid-air without necessarily resulting in an accident. One very useful quality which Captain Dickson has manifested at various times is that he has a good eye for a flyer and indeed at the time he bought his Farman with a Gnome motor he showed a foresight that was more than justified by the subsequent popularity and success of that particular combination. In the future we hope he will see fit to turn this and his other abilities—particularly his unique familiarity with the movement in France—to the advantage of the British industry. He is not a man whose work this country can afford to lose and if there is no longer any need for hirn to compete in actual flying with the younger men that is only the more reason why the fruits of his experience should be secured and be taken full advantage of in the future. With regard to his accident, the curious will be interested to learn that, at the present moment, Captain Dickson has—as is not uncommon under similar circumstances—no recollection whatever of the occurrence. All he knows of the catastrophe is what he has been told, although on every other subject his mind is absolutely clear, and although it is only within the last few days, so to spaak, that other incidents of the Milan Meeting have begun to reappear in his mental vision with anything like their natural colours. Therefore it may or may not be within his ability, later on, to gratify those who have embodied in their letters of sympathy a request for a personal account of the accident.
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