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Aviation History
1912
1912 - 0718.PDF
Seldom have we read anything more A I.'TV • i graphically interesting than Mr. H. G. of Flijht Wells' article in last Monday's Daily Mail recounting the experience of his first flight with Mr. Grahame-White at Eastbourne. It is not that his experience was full of adventure or even that it was more than just a little exciting. Nothing happened, but that pilot and passenger indulged in quite a common place sort of trip out to sea and back again—the kind of thing that is being done almost times without number every day of the week. But there is something fasci nating in the very idea of the famous novelist making his first trip in the air. Not that there is anything sensa tional nowadays in the most famous of personages trusting themselves to the most uncertain of all elements, for the edge of our appetite has been worn off long since by the spectacle of eminent politicians, soldiers, sailors and even royalty itself making flights almost as a matter of course. But Mr. Wells appeals to us as being by way of in a class by himself for he, above all of our contem porary authors, has figured as an arch-disciple of aviation. At the time when Lilienthal and Professor Langley were making their experiments, Mr. Wells was one of the very few journalists of his day who had the courage to set down in cold print his conviction that in his own life time he would see men fly. And at that time it required more than ordinary courage to profess belief in a future conquest of the air. He himself says that he suffered no inconsiderable loss of reputation as a consequence of opinions—those were the days when every experimenter in dynamic flight was regarded as a hopeless and dangerous lunatic, so we are quite content to believe what Mr. Wells has told us. However, he never seems to have wavered, and the fascination of the air has manifestly been upon him all through the years since first he became interested. No novelist of our own or any time has so let his imagination run riot in the air. His " War in the Air" was a case in point, to all appearance, as wildly far-fetched a work as could possibly be imagined at the time it was written—but who would dare to say that its possibilities are overdrawn in the light of even our present knowledge ? But let us pass on to find Mr. Wells once more in prophetic mood. " We ancient survivors of those who believed in and wrote about flying before there was any flying used to make a great fuss about the dangers and difficulties of landing and getting up. We wrote with vast gravity about • starting rails ' and ' landing stages,' and it is still true that landing an aeroplane, except upon a well known and quite level expanse, is a risky and uncomfortable business. But getting up and landing upon fairly smooth water is easier than getting into bed. This alone is likely to determine the aeroplane routes along the line of the world's coast-lines and lake groups and water-ways. The airmen will go to and fro over water as the midges do. Wherever there is a square mile of water the waterplanes will come and go like hornets at the mouth of their nest." There is something almost wonderful in these few words of prophecy. And yet they are commonplace enough in all conscience—they are not even new, for it is no more than we ourselves have said not once but many times. It is when we carry our memory back fourteen or more years and remember the faith of the ® ® Aerial Legislation in France, THE Prefect of Police of Paris has just issued an order forbidding aeroplanes to land within the limits of the city, or at less than 500 metres from the nearest buildings in the Communes of the Department of the Seine, except in flying grounds authorised by the 7I8 man in what was then an absolutely'discredited line of research and his later creations of the imagination, all evincing that same almost pathetic faith and almost carrying conviction by the very forcefulness of his writings, extravagant as they might have seemed, and then realising that he is now dealing with a future in which there is nothing of imagination but only cold- drawn probability—nay, certainty. Even in the air there is little enough of romance left to us in these matter-of-fact days and we feel, as it were, under a debt of gratitude to Mr. Wells for removing the drab mantle, even for a moment, that seems to envelope all our doings, enabling us to see that after all the romantic is not altogether dead but simply needs the discerning eye to realise its presence. The letter of the R.Ae.C. on the subject ^Vfja the °f flyinS over the Armv Manoeuvre ground Army during next month's operations, published Manoeuvres, in our issue of last week and sent out to every pilot holding the Club's certificate, seems to us to be fit subject for comment. We need hardly say that we entirely approve of the letter and its tone. Moreover, the Army Council is absolutely right in taking the view it does of the presence within the limits of the manoeuvre area of aviators who have no lot or part in the operations. The reasons assigned are perfectly good reasons, and we trust and believe that they will be recognised as such by unattached aviators who might possibly be impelled by curiosity to visit the manoeuvres by air. The main point, however, which strikes us is the official recognition implied by the request of the Army Council to the Club to issue this notification to its certificated pilots. It would have been just as easy for the Council to have made application for the necessary action to be taken to bring into force the provisions of the Aerial Navigation Act and to have thus had the area of operations legally placed " out of bounds " to all but aviators employed by the military authorities. Instead, however, of this being done, the Council has evidently assumed that the Club has in fact that authority upon which we laid stress at the time the Government passed the Act to which we have already referred. Then we pointed out that legislation was entirely superfluous at this early stage of the movement, for one reason because anything in the way of laws dictated by panic might easily by their incidence inflict lasting injury on the future of aviation and that it was especially undesirable and unnecessary to legislate, inasmuch as the Royal Aero Club possessed ample power of control and, if need be of punishment, of aviators holding its certificate who might transgress the amenities. It is very evident that the Army Council recognises that these contentions are right and is content to rest its faith on the Club's authority and the good sense of the pilots. In a sense, aviation and aviators are placed on their honour and, that being the case, we trust that it is unnecessary to appeal to the latter to loyally observe the Club's behest. Administration. Flying machines are also forbidden to fly over Paris or the Communes of the Department of the Seine except at such a height that should the motor stop they could vol plane to ground outside the city. In case of a descent in prohibited area the pilot must wait until authorised to start by the proper officials.
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