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Aviation History
1911
1911 - 0560.PDF
RAILWAYS A UNDER this heading the Railway Times, in a recent issue, devoted a long leading article to aviation and the relation of the railway companies to the movement. The mere fact that an authority of such weight in railway matters as our contemporary should thus early begin to weigh up this relationship has a significance of its own. It implies a recognition that flying has now to be reckoned with as a means of locomotion—a fact of which those of us who are directly interested from the inside had long ago recognised, but of which many not so closely in touch with progress were sceptical. The article to which we refer points out that the rapid development of aviation in this country calls for attention on the part of the railway companies, because consider able need for special facilities for transportation in rural districts is likely suddenly to arise. We have to look for ward, says our contemporary, to the initiation and growth of a comparatively steady traffic, both in the passenger and goods departments. This will arise from the multi plication of flying schools and aerodromes. Already there are such places in the Isle of Sheppey, at Brooklands, Salisbury Plain, and Bristol. A large school is expected to be established at Lingfield, another is to be opened at Huntingdon, and half a dozen others are projected or in course of construction. The prospects are that these are only the precursors, and besides these accomplished facts we have to look forward to the establishment all over the country of grounds to be used, not necessarily for tuition in flying, but as starting and alighting places and centres for repairs for aeroplanes which will be touring the country. Both classes of grounds must of necessity be situated in rural districts, and they may frequently not be close to existing railways, because the prime requirement is a large, open, approximately level piece of ground. The number of men who can fly is rapidly multiplying, and the rate of increase promises rapidly to accelerate. All these men working on their subject at different rural centres will require many things, and the railway will have to bring these things. First, there will be material for the erection of sheds. Then new aeroplanes must frequently be transported from the manufacturers to the flying grounds. Next will come a steady demand for spare parts, stores and apparatus for repairs, supplies of petrol and lubri cating oil. The aviators themselves, mechanics, re pairers, groundmen, timekeepers, and so forth, will be frequent passengers on the local railway lines. Whenever the weather is fine, especially on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, large numbers of people visiting the grounds will have to be conveyed by railway. In some cases at least the railway companies may find it advisable to establish new stations near to flying grounds. If the railway is at some distance, the company concerned may find it desirable to provide road motor transport between their nearest station and the grounds, for conveyance of aeroplanes, spare parts, stores, and so on, as well as for passengers. To encourage the conveyance of flying machines by railway, better methods must be adopted than those which allowed the destruction of two aeroplanes by fire while being conveyed to Lanark last year. In conclusion, the Railway Times sums up by saying that while it is impossible to predict to what dimensions the flying business will grow, it is sure to develop, and the railway companies by providing for it as ID AVIATIOM. soon as occasion comes into view may make some of their lines in rural districts appreciably more remunerative. There is, it is true, not much in all this but what we have realised long enough ago, but it is surely significant of the hold that aviation has got to find such sentiments as these gravely enunciated by an organ of railway opinion. Underlying it all, too, there is a species of cautious conservatism which goes far to indicate that the writer of the article had considered and weighed his subject before committing himself to paper and ink. There is no speculating for the future as to whether or not the day may come when the aeroplane will be a serious rival to the railway passenger service, or whether it will in the near future be useful as feeder of the main lines. For our own part, we should look upon such speculations as idle in the light of present knowledge. What may or may not happen as the sum of that know ledge increases, and the art of aerial navigation progresses, is on the knees of the gods—we cannot foresee it, and are minded to follow the example of the writer in the Railway Times in refraining from prophesy. Therein, we believe, lies ,wisdom, and truly there is no pressing necessity to go beyond the confines of the assured certainties. One of those certainties is that the writer in ques tion is absolutely right in his facts. There is no more dubiety in flight. Before long, the knowledge of how to handle an aeroplane will be a sine qua non among those who aspire to be in the swim of things, though there is admittedly a wide gulf fixed between that condition of affairs and the universal adoption of flying as a matter of everyday course. But even when we have got to that stage, it will necessarily mean that the number of what we may call habitual aviators will have vastly increased, and that in turn means that they will, as our con temporary points out, need accommodation. They must learn to fly, and that means flying schools and aerodromes. The first essential of the aerodrome is that it must be large enough and level enough for its purpose. The second is, that it must be readily accessible either by rail or road, preferably by both. It is not all open spaces that are so happily situated in this respect as Brooklands, where we found our roads and railways already made and giving ample access to it. There are many places in the three kingdoms which would be splendidly suitable for flying grounds if only we could get at them. For the moment they must be allowed to lie fallow—we do not actually need any more than we have, but as the movement pro gresses and the number of flying men and aspirants increases, as it will do in the very near future, we shall require other and more extensive grounds to accommo date them. Then will come the day of the railway company which has brought shrewd foresight to bear on the question and the one that has ignored the indications will find that, in vulgar parlance, it has been left. There is no need for us to elaborate farther the pointing of the way to which our contemporary has committed itself. Rather would we point the moral conveyed by the article with which we have been dealing, which is that aviation has achieved to such a position that it is no longer looked upon by serious people as something ephemeral, if not economically impossible, but that its possible bearings on other matters and other industries are being carefully studied by men of weight and authority.
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