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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0990.PDF
SEPTEMBER 27, him for the keen and expert business life of 10 yearshence. " The careful father need not fear that by encourag- ing in his boy an interest in aeronautics he is leading him on to an early grave. Flying in war-time is fraught with danger because machines are flown that are designed for speed, mobility, and swift manoeuvre, the essentials of a fighting machine. But even to-day there are aeroplanes in use for training pilots for the Army and Navy which are all but ' fool-proof '— machines which nothing but sheer accident will cause to ' crash.' Accidents will happen to every vehicle. A burst tyre on a swiftly moving motor car, a broken axle on an express train, a faulty frame in a ' push ' bicycle even, will lead to fatal accidents ; there must ^always be risks, and the risks of the air will not be disproportionate when once science and craft set themselves to the task of making safe flying machines. " And just as every man in the motor-car industry is not a racing driver, so every man in the aeroplane industry will not be a pilot ; for each man who flies there must be scores who will work on the ground to prepare his machine for him. The men who work on the ground will be the men who make the money, the men who fly mostly those who spend it." Generally speaking, we agree with the writer's conclusions, though we are inclined to think that in places he is inclined to let enthusiasm get away with sound judgment. Undoubtedly he is right in saying that tfiere is a decided future in the aircraft industry for the boy of the right sort, but he is certainly not correct in forecasting even for the " right kind of boy " a career which in a few brief years will turn him almost automatically into a nkllionaire. He would have been better advised if he had pursued the parallel of the motor-car industry, in which a few have amassed large fortunes, a number have achieved modest competencies, and very many are able to earn quite comfortable livings. It is only in businesses of a speculative nature that everyone, rank and file as well as the people who have the direction of affairs,- really makes a lot of money, and we believe that when at long last the war is over and we settle down to take stock we shall find that the aircraft industry has ceased to be speculative and has become a solid business proposition which will offer a substantial career to the aspirant, but one devoid of the dazzling possibilities which our contemporary's writer would credit it with. And we had much rather see it that way. "What is desirable more than any- thing else is that the aircraft industry should become a Teal and established industry as distinct from that mixture of glamour and uncertainty that distinguished it until the war came to give it the opportunity of proving itself 10 to 20 years before it could otherwise have emerged from the crysalis to stand forth as an industry comparable to its older sister of the car. The writer of the article under discussion is on better ground when he argues that the careful father need not fear that in encouraging his son to an interest in flying he is leading him on to an early grave. As a matter of fact, we believe the public at large is really beginning to grasp the fact that under ordinary con- ditions, flying is as safe as any other mode of travel. -People know that there must be accidents under war flying conditions, and the general attitude is one rather of wonder that there are not more than one of surprise at their number. The vast expansion of the flying services has been the governing factor in the change of viewpoint from which the man in the street regards flying. There is practically no one in the country who has not a relative or at least a friend in either one of the two fighting air services and the effect has been of enormous educative value, since it has brought home to the layman at first hand almost, how really safe flying has become. Therefore, we do not fear that there will in future be any lack of the right material for the industry because of the opposi- tion- of parents or guardians to the^adoption by their charges of a " dangerous " occupation. To sum up, there is no doubt at all, to our way of thinking, that the aircraft industry does hold out an excellent prospect for the lad who is serious and who enters it prepared to -work as hard and as well as he would have to do to make good in any other industry or profession. But it will offer no more opportunities' than any other business to those who desire to achieve position and competence by a royal road. There is no way nowadays to such position and competence save by hard work, study, and devotion to duty and if the " right kind of boy " is prepared to enter the aircraft industry with that firmly fixed in his mind it will offer him as good a career as any, and better than most, other professions. We are glad to see that The Times has ^ been at some pains to drive home Our Airmen. t° the public which, justly incensed at the apparent immunity from punish- ment of enemy raiders over-British open towns, is inclined to blame the Air Services, that the fault does not lie at that door. In a leading article in a recent. issue The Times after traversing at some length the facts of the work of our airmen at the front, says :— " In one respect the Germans have attained great skill. Some of their anti-aircraft gunners have, by long practice, become"extremely accurate ; yet, if the • public knew how often our squadrons come under prolonged and heavy German fire, and return after accomplishing their objects without a single loss, they ' would perhaps be less critical of our air defences in this country. As to the constant bombing of German • aerodromes in Belgiun, it is hard to estimate the precise damage inflicted, but there is not the slightest doubt that many of our raids result in very con- siderable destruction of enemy material. It is reason- able to assume that these raids greatly lessen air attacks directed against England. If our airmen were not constantly attacking the aerodromes in Belgium we should probably be subjected to much more fre- quent visitations in the eastern counties. No doubt air warfare is still in an intermediate phase. The time may come when the duties which now occupy most of the time of the air services will be regarded as sub- sidiary, and when the offensive possibilities of the new arm will be developed on an infinitely larger scale. Such changes, should they ever come, cannot be rapid. Most people do not realise that aeroplane construction is now an exceedingly delicate, complex, and difficult business. It is far easier to talk theoreti- cally of attaining victory through the air than to provide rapidly the multitude of machines, and of men to pilot them, which a great expansion of air warfare requires." This is a point of view upon which we have insisted ever since the enemy created the fashion of bombing from the air our open and undefended areas. We have never gone out to be too critical of the actual defences of London or any other of our large cities, for the 990
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