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Aviation History
1913
1913 - 0756.PDF
was one in which a landowner was sued for the value of pigeons he had shot with a bow and arrow, and his solicitor contended that the birds were trespassing by flying above his client's land. The Bench, however, do not seem to have thought much of the defence, inasmuch as they registered a conviction and condemned the defendant to pay the value of the injured pigeons. The defence was undoubtedly ingenious, though we are not inclined to subscribe to the opinion that it deserved to succeed because of its ingenuity. After all, trespass is not even a misdemeanour unless it is accompanied by proved damage, and we can hardly stretch our imagination far enough to believe that damage can be caused by the mere flying over land of anything from a sparrow to an aeroplane. Besides, it is bad enough to have to deal with " prohibited areas " under the Aerial Navigation Acts, when we have the law administered by officials whose one fetish is red-tape, but if we are to have our birds and aircraft made into targets for every cross-grained landowner who practises archery we shall soon come to a pretty pass. However, there is very little chance of a revival of the long obsolete doctrine of ownership of the air. • • • According to our daily contemporaries, we An Aerial are t0 naye a regU]arly-established million Servkc6' poundcapitalised aerial passenger serviceby Christmas. At the outset, it is said, services are to be inaugurated between London and Manchester, London and Birmingham, London and Brighton, and London and Paris. For the present, though ready to •consider any type of airship offered for their approval, the promoters of the enterprise have decided upon a ship of the semi-rigid type, fitted with 270 h.p. motors, and capable of a speed of sixty miles per hour. Two of these are to be ready to open the sevice, and before a year has passed it is expected that quite half-a-dozen will be carrying passengers. We have had particulars of schemes of this character laid before us from time to time, and it seems strange that nothing in the way of information regarding so important an aerial enterprise as the present one has reached us direct, though we accept the statements, as set out in the dailies, that the service is actually in contemplation, and extend our heartiest welcome to it. If it should materialise in the shape it is apparently intended to assume, it is scarcely possible to exaggerate its importance. It will mark a new epoch in British aeronautics, and one which cannot fail to be of inestimable value to the movement, since it must bring home to the man in the street the outstanding fact that aerial navigation has long passed the doubtful stage. This is one of the principal difficulties in the way of development at the present time. People simply do not realise how important a bearing flight has upon the future of this country, and the consequence is that, despite all the efforts of those who really do know, there is really no public opinion that counts. That is why our Government is so hard to move, and why we are lagging so hopelessly behind our rivals. For these reasons, apart altogether from our desire to see aeronautics prosper commercially, we shall be rather more than pleased if this latest scheme, unlike the many previously mooted, turns out to have the necessary material support behind it. ® ® ® ® MR. F. WARREH MER PILOT INSTRUCTOR. MR. F. W. MERRIAM, the subject of our portrait in this issue of FLIGHT, is one of the school of pilots, most of whom have turned out excellent flyers, who entered aviation through the useful mechanical training of motor car driving. So long ago as 1903, Mr. Merriam was the owner of his own car, which he drove practically all over England, and later abroad. A native of Falmouth, he there started a small garage, having previously been through the motor workshops, and acquired all there was to learn in those days about the cars and engines he was called on to drive. The call of the air gripped him in the early days of flying, but family reasons prohibited his taking it up till 1911. On joining the Bristol School as a pupil, he was not content to take lessons in flying only, but worked hard in the sheds assisting the mechanics, and learning every thing thoroughly. Here he had plenty of time, as tuition was hardly as rapid in the early days as it is to-day. At that time, no instructor would ever have dreamt of going up behind a pupil, and teaching him the controls during actual flight, as it is done now. Moreover, Mr. Merriam was one of those who did not believe in going too fast, preferring to go step by step, each step to be thorough! ® ® Army Air Service Department. IT should be a source of general satisfaction to know that Brigadier General Henderson, whom our readers will remember as one of the early military pilots to secure a brtvet(Ko. 118), will be in direct control as Director-iicneral of the new Army Air Service D™™, f,«d«to™l a, P„ta„, b, Col. S«ly 0, Radlcy aod ?. £ McCk-in. B wk XTW.a ih.t to Vm ! It was on February 6th, 1912, that he eventually became the proud possessor of certificate No. 179, taken on a Bristol biplane. During that year he had continuous practice in flying the machines of the Bristol Company, including the E.N.V. tractor, and the monoplane. Still sticking to his old school, in September of that year he was appointed chief instructor and manager for the Bristol Company at Brooklands. Mr. Merriam is recognised as a most painstaking instructor, and gets his pupils through in as short a time as he thinks consistent with sound teaching. Since taking charge, he has had 62 pupils pass for their certifi cates at Brooklands almost without a mishap, and at any rate without any serious accident, which is something to be proud of, and speaks volumes for his methods of tuition. In his own flying—he has had but one accident— Merriam has been—shall we say lucky?—no, I do not think it is so much luck as sound judgment, and a thorough knowledge of his art. Like most Brooklands pilots, he did not escape the magnetic attractions of the sewage farm, which sooner or later seems to force an introduction to all. "THE HAWK." The Daily Mail Round Britain Race. As will be been from the Royal Aero Club Official Notices on page 791, when the entries for the Daily Mail Round Britain Race closed at ordinary fees on Wednesday last, they numbered four, the entrants being Messrs. T. O. M. Sopwith, S. F. Cody, Tames 782 having granted the necessary exemptions.
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