FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1911
1911 - 0622.PDF
THE CIRCUIT OF BRITAII TO-DAY there starts what is beyond all doubt the most important competition that has taken place in the brief history of dynamic flight. We refer, of course, to the Circuit of Britain, for which the Daily Mail has generously provided a magnificent prize in cash—one that is well worth the winning, and which should enable the fortunate aviator who succeeds in gaining it to carry on his work free of the limitations imposed by want of the necessary financial resources to continue experiment. We have described this event as the most important ot all that have hitherto been organised. Some may possibly think that we are inclined to give it undue value and that there have been others—such as the recently concluded European Circuit, for example—which have been at least its equals in interest and in influence on the movement. From the standpoint of mere interest we are willing to concede that the European Circuit was at least the equal of the race which starts from Brooklands this afternoon, but when that is said all has been said that is possible. As indeed we pointed out last week, this competition is unique in the test it imposes on man and machine— particularly on the latter. It is one thing to scramble through a long circuit, favoured it may be by luck and superior organisation, which may easily turn the result in favour of an inferior machine, piloted by one who may be a long way from being the best of those competing. But to successfully bring one machine through such a test as the Circuit of Britain promises to be, is in a different category altogether. While other like events have been races pure and simple, to be won anyhow as it were, the British Circuit will be in effect a searching reliability trial, and it is from this point of view alone that it should be regarded. True, it is a race also in which the first to arrive at the finishing point, having complied with all the con ditions, will be the winner, but it is nevertheless as a reliability trial first and foremost that it has to be regarded. This is where its chief value lies. It has been demonstrated time and again that the aeroplane is capable of traversing great distances—especially when attended by a fleet of motor cars carrying enough spare parts to rebuild the machine. It has been proved that a long distance race can be won by a machine whose entrant has organised his supplies properly and who has seen to it that he is well equipped with spares, even to duplicate machines, so what need to continue along what we may call the unrestricted lines ? The time, in our judgment, has gone by when it was necessary to hi >ld out encouragement to the man first and the machine afterwards. In the earlier stages of flight it was undoubtedly the former who required spoon-feeding with large money prizes. He was a pioneer and an enthusiast—else he would not have been at the game— and after the manner of his kind he was generally blessed with more enthusiasm than money. It is ever the case that the pioneer has an up-hill fight. The pioneer of flight has been no exception to this almost immutable rule, but he has been more fortunate than most in arousing that sort of practical interest which leads to the untying of the purse-strings, and it is to that fact mainly that we owe the phenomenal progress which the science has made during the past three years. To go back only a little way, the motor car had to fight its own way in the face of almost every imaginable discouragement. Its pioneers had to finance it out of their own pockets and to fight their battles for themselves. Fortunately for progress, the story of flight, thanks to munificent persons and corporations like the proprietors of the Daily Mail, has been written differently. As it has been in the past, so we look to see it in the future. Although much has been done there still remains, a lot to be achieved, and we still have to look to the generosity of the friends of the movement to help us to do it. That the needed encouragement will be forthcoming we have no manner of doubt and the question we must set ourselves to answer is that of how best to apply that help. In this connection we believe that the manner of carrying, out the Circuit of Britain supplies the needed answer. The day of the circus type of performance has admittedly gone by. The " flying meeting " of the early days has gone to a limbo from which it will in all human probability never be resurrected—for which relief much thanks. The cross-country race of the go-as-you-please character is following it, simply because the public is becoming instructed in the lore of flight and is beginning to see that these events prove next to nothing of value. The man in the street does not want it demonstrated to- him that it is possible to fly across country. He knows that by this time—unless he be of the kind whose interest is not worth cultivating. Having got the first main lesson driven home, the next stage is to demonstrate that the aeroplane is fit to rank with other vehicles of the land and water as a means of locomotion. The very first and most essential point that requires to be brought out in this respect is that the aeroplane is first and last an instrument of reasonable reliability—one that can be depended upon to make its journeys in safety, with reasonable speed and with absolute certainty. The first two qualifications have already been amply proved. In spite of the number of accidents debited to the account of the aeroplane, accidents which were inevitable at the stage to which we had arrived when the majority of them happened, it is now proved beyond question that flying is a reasonably safe pursuit and that, what is even more important, it is becoming safer every day. So far as speed is concerned—well, ninety miles an hour at this early stage of development promises fairly well for the future. Now we come to the last of our three qualifications—reliability. Those of us who give our time to the study of flight and its collaterals know that even now the aeroplane and its motor have got to a point at which they may fairly be described as dependable quantities. To argue that we have got to the ultimate point of absolute reliability would be as futile as it would be foolish and we do not propose to do anything of the kind. Just how reliable the aeroplane really is or how little it can be depended upon we frankly confess we do- not know, and it is fair to ask how, if that is the case, the man in the street can pass judgment ? That is where the Circuit of Britain comes in—it will undoubtedly be above all things informative. Not only will it tell the ordinary person, with no pretensions to special knowledge, just what he can expect a machine to do in the event of his deciding that the time has come for him to make his journeys in the air, but it must supply a mass of detailed information for the use of the expert. In the days of motor car reliability trials and racing, we used to hear many and florid arguments about " improving the breed." Beyond doubt racing and trials did afford much data which went towards that improvement, and it is because the Circuit must of necessity afford that same sort of information that we are so enthusiastically in favour of it as a type event. More than anything that has gone before, it must tend to " improve the breed."
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
