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Aviation History
1912
1912 - 0578.PDF
I/QCHT JUNE 29, 1912. EDITORIAL COMMENT. More Daily Mail Activity. With steady insistence the Daily Mail continues its campaign on behalf of aviation. Not content with having given money prizes which represent quite a consult rablc fortune for the furtherance of the move ment; with having opened its columns most generously to news and comment which can help to bring home to the lay public the immense importance of flight in its many bearings; and with having already spent money with a lavish hand to demonstrate the actualities of aviation to the man in the street, still more money is to be devoted to bringing home the possibilities of the newest form of dynamic flying machine—the hydro aeroplane. In the words of its own announcement, the Daily Mail will, at the end of next month, begin a series of demonstrations with hydro-aeroplanes. The object of the demonstration is to afford the public opportunities of seeing the newest and perhaps most appreciated branch of flight, and to bring home to the country the vital importance of the waterplane to the Fleet. Mr. Frank Hucks will commence flights immediately, on Farman machines, with Southampton as a base for the moment. Mr. Claude Grahame-White will also take two machines to a number of places on the south coast, so that the thousands of visitors thereat the end of July and through out August may have, with no more trouble than that of looking out to sea, in the words of our contemporary, the opportunity of watching these graceful "amphibians " wheeling in the air to seaward and alighting gently on tin- surface of the water For those who are not content with watching, and wish for more practical experience of the art, there will be passenger flights at a fixed charge. The machines which will be first used by Mr. Grahame- White are a Curtiss, two Farmans, and a Caudron ; Mr. Grahame-White will have a yacht to carry his nre parts and equipment from place to place along the coast; and at each town the waterplanes visit a special shed and an enclosure will be erected for the machines. It will be seen, therefore, that the demonstration is going to cost our contemporary a great deal of money. Dbubtless, there will be some—it 4s very much the fashion to sneer at the methods of the " halfpenny press "—who will point out that where 4he Daily Mail will recoup itself is by the value of the advertisement it will receive. But we will pay our contemporary the compliment of saying there is no need for it to seek advertisement of this expensive kind—it has Jong got past the stage when anything of the sort might have been essential to its prosperity. On the contrary, we believe that the enterprise has been under taken from motives of real public spirit, and under a sense of moral responsibility to the nation. . That we agree in the necessity which exists for the grave fact to be brought home to the public, that we are face to face with new problems of defence which may have a decisive bearing on the future of the Empire we need not insist. That we hold to that opinion must be sufficiently obvious to the reader of FLIGHT who has followed what we have from time to time written on the subject. Therefore, we need not now go out of the way to emphasise those opinibns. All that we need do at the moment, is to congratulate our contemporary upon this still further proof of its surpassing interest in flight, and to tender to it our own thanks—and we believe we may also speak for the whole movement—for its public spirit. The regrettable accident which resulted ofhtheRAir in the deaths of CaPL Dubois and Lieut Peignan at Douai last week, points the moral that it is absolutely necessary that there should be formulated without delay an international code of rules of the air, similar to that in use at sea. We are not unaware of the fact that something of the sort has already been attempted, both by the Aero Club of France, the F.A.I., and Other bodies, the only really effective result being found in the lengthy decree issued by the French Public Minister of Works in November last year, and of which a resume appeared in FLIGHT of December 2nd, T911. Although possibly not ideal in all respects, these might well form a very fine basis upon which to formulate a thoroughly sound set of rules of the air, but the regulations under this decree scarcely go far enough. They apply more to the registration and licensing of machines, though certain provisions relative to the manner in which aircraft are to be flown are introduced. For example, the lights to be carried are fixed by law. Dirigibles are to carry three lights, white, red and green as used by steam vessels at sea, while aeroplanes are to carry similar lights, although the regulation in their case is not to be insisted upon at first. So far as regards passing, the regulations provide that dirigibles and aeroplanes shall give way to free balloons, but there is nothing to govern the conduct of these two classes of craft when meeting or passing each other. Moreover, even SO far as these regulations take us, they only apply to aircraft in use over French territory, while it is with the general and International aspect of the question with which we are most concerned at the moment. The accident which supplies the case in point seems to have occurred in fog or thick haze, so that it is quite possible that the most complete code and its strictest observance would not have operated to avoid it. It was one of those occurrences which are described as " the act of God." But even supposing this to have been the case, the point we have made still remains. Not so long ago an aeroplane in flight was a species of curiosity, and the risk of accident through collision was practically negligable, but now the case is altered, and aeroplanes are at least common enough for the danger to be an appreciable one. Therefore, the question of codifying an international rule of the air has become, if not exactly a pressing one, still one that must receive early consideration. As to what shape this rule of the air should take, we can suggest nothing better than that the rule of the road at sea should be lifted and adapted to the purpose. For instance, two steam-vessels meeting end on are each required to alter their course to starboard, thus passing port side to port side. Two steamships crossing, the one which has the other on its own starboard side gives way. In the case of vessels overtaken the overtaking one gives way to the overtaken, while a steamer always gives way to a sailing vessel. It would l^e perfectly easy to apply almost the whole code to aircraft as it stands, the dirigible being regarded as the sailing craft of the air and the code, with necessary modifications in detail, such as specific distances for passing, &c, made to fit in with almost every conceivable situation that could arise. 578
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