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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0979.PDF
llight, November 9, 1916. \Cr First Aero Weekly in the World. Founder and Editor : STANLEY SPOONER. A Journal devoted to the Interests, Praotioe and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. No. 411. (No. 45, Vol. VIII.)] NOVEMBER %, 1916. pVeekly, Price Id. L Post Free, Ijd. Editorial Office: 44, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, \\ Telegrams : Truditur, Westrand, London. Telephone : Gerrard Annual Subscription Kates. Post Free. .C. 1828. United Kingdom 6s. 6df. Abroad CONTENTS. IS. 01/. Editorial Comment: * The Air Board Crisis .. Honours for the Dead The Government and the Press More Female Labour Wanted The British Air Services Airship Pioneers The Roll of Honour Royal Aero Club. Official Notices Aviation in Parliament Armchair Reflections. By the " Dreamer " Answers to Correspondents Airisms from the Four Winds Personals Aircraft Work at the Front. Official Information Company Matters •AUK 97< 97= 972 974 97S «77 „:;,, 981 981 98* o8i 985 „:.: 989 990 '^is-r&t'&VQ^ EDITORIAL COMMENT. [^T is with the greatest satisfaction that @ we regard the active campaign of the newspaper Press respecting the pre sent most unsatisfactory position of the Air Board in its relation to the flying services. The Daily Telegraph, on Monday last, published a leading article on the subject, in the main lines of which we concur. The article in question traces the developments which led up to the establish ment of the Air Board, whose future is now trembling in the balance, and ends with the cogent remark that the nation has one desire, and one .. T,j?e . desire only, and that is that both Crises* services—the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C. —shall be provided with the most efficient macliines and administered with due regard to the needs of war. It cares nothing for personal or departmental controversies, except so far as the public interests are affected. That appears to sum up the whole situation in the fewest possible words. The question, however, for the moment is, how are these ideals to be attained with the minimum of delay ? We endeavoured to answer the question to the best of our ability when writing on this subject in last week's issue of this journal. In the light of what is being said now, it will assist in the discussion of the points at issm if we repeat what we then wrote, which was this : " What is required is not the discussion of academic attempts to reconcile conflicting interests, but the immediate application of a drastic remedy which will relegate existing competition and overlapping to the place they belong. Thai remedy we believe to be the formation of a central air authority —whether it be the Air Board reconstituted or otherwise— not to interfere initially with the tactical dispositions of cither of the two Air Services, but with absolute power in all matters save this and internal administration. It should have—as most people thought the Air Board would have—complete control over all contracts for machines and supplies, thus putting an end to the present ruinous competition between the two services. In or after consultation with the Admiralty and the Army Council it should deal with strategical dis positions in so far as the definition of what may best be described as the respective spheres of activity of the two services are concerned.' The Telegraph does not go quite all the way along these lines. What it suggests—while it admits that this is the line of least resistance and a not altogether satisfactory solution—is the appointment of a strong Committee of the Ministry of Munitions to order material for both services. We do not regard the idea as a practical solution at all, since we are most strongly of opinion that what is required is not a committee of any Ministry, but an authority separate and distinct, whose sole concern should be the Air Services. If we were concerned only with the present, such a Committee might do well enough, but we have had quite enough of stop-gaps. We must have an eye to the future, and what we therefore want is a body which, however much its powers of executive may have to fall short for the present of those of a Third Service, will at least form the nucleus from which such a service must ultimately develop. In the nature of things, a mere committee of a temporary Ministry could not fill the bill. From that point of view alone, we conceive that what must be urgently pressed for is an authority on the lines laid down in the quotation we have printed above. That is the irreducible minimum with which the nation can be satisfied. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, in the Times, is appa rently at one with us on this vital question. He puts it that it may be advisable that during the war the
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