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Aviation History
1913
1913 - 0586.PDF
/jJGHT] in the immediate neighbourhood of a large town. Other wise the work of tuning up, repairing and testing the machines, cannot be completed without long delays after even the smallest mishaps. All of which is very true. The Royal Aero Club had proposed Southampton as the starting place for the race, but the War Office maintains its prohibition of all the places mentioned, even if the race is restricted to British pilots ! Was ever such fatuous ineptitude ? Southampton being barred by the War Office, we read that the Club suggests that the I names Estuary should be the point for the start, but in the light of the Home Office attitude with regard to the Thames it does not seem the least bit certain that the river will be any more available than Southampton Water. Whether it is the Home Office or the Admiralty which exercises jurisdiction in the estuary we are not certain at the moment of writing, though for the sake of the success of the race we trust it is the Admiralty, from whom we should expect a more reasonable interpretation Of the regulations governing flying around the coasts of these islands. Apparently, however, each of the three departments — the Home and War Offices and the Admiralty—has something to say with regard to all the prohibited areas, and this, naturally complicates the issues enormously, inasmuch as a separate set of negotia tions has to be undertaken simultaneously with each. What infinite possibilities for official procrastination this seems to open out ! I he Daily Mail, in its article dealing with the situation, ® ® The Aerial Royal Welcome Home. As on the departure of their Majesties from these shores for iterlin so on their return the officers of the Naval Wing of the Koyal t lying Corps provided an aerial escort. One of the machines irom the naval air station at the Isle of Grain met the "Victoria JUNE 7, 1913- sums up the matter admirably when it says that apart from the question of races, the British builder of aero planes and waterplanes is placed under a severe handicap. He may not build or test at any of the places most naturally suitable. There can be no aeronautical works in future on the Thames or the Solent, or at any place where the right kind of labour and material is best obtainable. The Royal Aero Club, which has undertaken the organi sation and arrangement of the circular race round Britain, is no doubt doing all that can be done to move the authorities from their present attitude, and will, we trust, succeed in securing some modification of the present impossible stand taken in official quarters. But what ever the result of the Club's efforts may be, the knowledge will still remain that so far from there being any disposition to encourage a very necessary industry, the official attitude is distinctly one of active discourage ment, which is the less understandable when we remember the public utterances of those who stand at the head of the Government. Time and again have we been assured that the Government was entirely sympathetic to the movement and the industry; that it was fully appreciated that aerial defence was one of the pressing questions of the moment; and that the Government was quite alive to all the necessities of the case. And this is how the knowledge is applied—by the placing in the way of development of every conceivable obstacle by means of an attitude of non possitmus. ® ® and Albert" just off the Nore on Wednesday of last week, while a Short tractor biplane from the Naval Frying School at Eastchurch circled around the Royal Yacht as it was approaching the pier at Port Victoria. The two naval aeroplanes carried out a number of evolutions, and one flew over the Royal train as it steamed out of the station. Lieut, von Hiddessen on hts D.F.W. monoplane on which he won the three days' "Prince Henry Reliability Trials." The machine is constructed by the "German Aircraft Works" at Leipzig. 608
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