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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0539.PDF
MAY 31, 1917. . a journey of, say, 100 miles, as we must have some unit, thecapital expenditure, apart from running cost, comes out as follows :— Railway .. £2,400,000. Aircraft .. £60,000 I do not for one moment suggest that, once the capitaloutlay on the railway has been made, it will not carry, to a huge extent, much more traffic than the aeroplane line, butuntil that traffic is forthcoming the aeroplane will, firstly, do it without such capital expenditure, and secondly, will alwaysdo it very much faster. The natural obstacles encountered by the railway and theroad may be unsurmountable. The air is free of any such obstacles. •** I will now take you through the costs of a sample route, and I suggest London-i'aris as an instance. We can take it that if the journey is done in half the ordinary time we shall have mails and passengers—some because they want to get there quickly, others because they wish to avoid the Channel crossing, and a good many, at'first, for curiosity. Now to. start a Commercial Service we are not asking for millions of passengers or tons of mails ; we are not thinking of rivalling the Tubes. In putting these before you I would make it quite clear that they are costs of to-day, which I think it is right I should take, as if I begin to prophesy you will doubt me at once. At the same time I have not the slightest doubt that these figures, as times go on, will come down enormously, just as the cost of running omnibuses has come down since the time when the first petrol omnibus nearly ruined every company running them, and I would like to say without much mis- giving that within a certain period you may halve them. AERIAL SERVICE, LONDON-PARIS (FIG. D). One machine each way daily. : ' Carrying 2,500 lbs., less petrol and oil and pilot, for, say,300 miles. Capital—9 machines at £2,500, £32,500 ; working capital, say, £12,500. Total, £35,000. At 10 per cent, interest per annum, £3,500, or £9 6s. 8d. per day for 600 miles, 3^d. per mile. Sheds—London, £500; Dover, £200; Calais, £200 ; Amiens, £200 ; Paris, £500. Total, £1,600. Say £4 1 os. per day for 600 miles, 2d. per mile. Labour—London, 12 men ; Dover, 2 men ; Calais, 2 men ; Amiens, 2 men ; Paris, 12 men. Total, 30 men. At £3 10s. per week equals £15 per day for 600 miles, 6d. per mile. Pilots—3 flights one way per week per pilot requires for 14 ^flights per week 4^ pilots, reserve, say, ij pilots, equals 6#pilots, at £500 per annum each equals £3,000 per annum,ba y|^8 5s- per day for 600 miles, $$d. per mile. Total cost per mile, is. 3d. y^ - = 2,000 lbs. for utility purposes. U Machines—London, 2 ; Dover, 1 ; Calais, 1 ; Amiens, 1 ; Paris, 2 ; Spares, 2. Total, 9. LONDON - PARIS LABOUR Fig. E. Running Expenses—24 gallons petrol and 5 gallons of oil, taking speed at 100 miles per hour, 8d. per mile. Depreciation and Repairs—Allowing complete overhaul every 100 hours, flying 300 miles per day at 100 miles per hour equals overhaul every 33 days. 25" per cent, off two machines at £2,500 each equals £1,250 equals £38 per day for 600 miles, is. j,d. per mile. Overhead Charges—Management, £3,000; clerical work, &c, £1,600 ; advertising, &c, each end, £6,000 ; offices, &c, £1,000 ; Contingencies, £2,400. Total, £14,000. Say £40 per day for 600 miles, is. 6d. per mile; plus, as above, is. 3d. per mile. Total cost per mile, 4s. 8d. . PARIS-LONDON (FIG. F). . •'.,'«' ~\~ Profit and Loss. _ ^ ~"r. "• ,-.••• ^ Passengers—Cost, say, 3s. per mile. 300 miles •» £45- 2,000 lbs. = 12 passengers. Cost per passenger, £3 15s. Charge per passenger, £5. Profit per machine each way daily, £15 ; 12 passengers each way, four machines, profit £43,000 per annum; 11 ditto, profit £30,000; 10 ditto, profit £14,000 ; 8 ditto, loss £14,000 ; 7 ditto, loss £29,000 ; 6 ditto, loss £40,800 ; 5 ditto, loss £58,000 ; and so on. PROFIT AND LOSS (FIG. G). Mails—Load, 2,000 lbs. = 32,000 ozs. Cost per oz., \d. \ charge, say, \d. ; Charge, 3 1b. parcel, 2s. Full load each way, 4 machines, profit £60,000 per annum ; three-quarter load each way, 4 machines, profit £14,000 per annum ; half- load each way, 4 machines, profit £35,000 per annum ; and so on. Total cost of 4 machines each way, £130,000. LONDON-MARSEILLES (FIG. H). , •" ,8 hours. Passengers, £10 ; mails, id. per oz. ! LONDON-CONSTANTINOPLE. >.:J'''(, 20 hours. Passengers, £25 ; mails, i\d. per oz. Now you will have seen from these costs that I have put before you that passenger services are not high for the speed of journey, and present a really commercial proposition, although at a competitive price they are slightly higher than by train and boat, whilst mails present an easier proposition, and it seems to me that the solution is a mail service subsidised by the Government with the right to carry passengers. It is certain that the aeroplane is going to be used by business men for business purposes. No other mode of transport can touch it. Whether it costs 5s. per mile or £5, the business which can be done on certain occasions will only be done by arriving in time. It will be seen from Fig. D that the total cost per .mile of running a machine is 4s. Sd., running one machine each way. By reference to Fig. E, however, it will be seen how rapidly the cost comes down if two, three, or four machines are run each way daily, and I think it is fair to assume that between two capitals, such as London and Paris, at least four machines each way will be necessary, and we can, therefore, for the purposes of this paper take 3s. per mile as being a safe figure. Fig. F shows how this cost, reduced to passengers, will come out. It will be seen that the • charge per passenger to Paris, at a profitable rate, so long as the machines are fully loaded, comes out at £5, which at the speed he is carried is certainly a commercial price. It will be noticed here by the figures shown at the bottom that, whilst there is a good profit if the machines are full of passengers, a reduction in the full load very easily turns the profit into a loss, and this is one of the points which will have to be considered very carefully indeed. The services must be started, and either subsidies or guarantee against loss must be forthcoming. Fig. G shows that mails are even more commercial; that is to say, a letter weighing one ounce can be profitably carried to Paris for one halfpenny in half the time it could reach there under the present methods, or a 3 lb. parcel for 2s. Here again it will be seen that profits can be made carrying full loads, but directly the load is reduced it is quite easy to make a heavy loss. From Fig. H you will see that, based on our London-Paris costs (Fig. D), a passenger can go from London to Marseilles in eight hours instead of 23, at a cost of £10 per head ; or that mails can be carried at a penny per ounce. Constantinople or Moscow can be reached in 20 hours, at a cost per ticket of £25 ; or mails at 2\d. per ounce, both of which I think proves still more the future of commercial aeronautics. For mail services I am certain that the aeroplane can, by its speed and moderate cost per letter, compete with existing mail services. I have always held these views, and they are expressed very simply by the fact that I arranged with Mr. Grahame White seven years ago to carry mails from Blackpool to Southport, and endeavoured to interest the then 539
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