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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1288.PDF
•••4 -i • DECEMBER -6, 1917. COMMERCIAL AERONAUTICS. By Lieut.-Colonel MERVYN O'GOBMAN, C.B., D.Sc. # Aerial Transport and Travel.—There is talk to-day of air-craft for transport and travel. The carriage of goods, mails, and people, the exploration of remote districts, the conduct ofphotographic surveys, the searching out of valuable trees in pathless forests, the speedy conveyance of officials to theiradministrations in distant climes—these things and others are everywhere hopefully dwelt on by the imaginative amongthose engaged in air work. It would be grossly unjust to say that such hopes and fancies detract from the energieswhich these persons expend on their war duties ; they rather indicate the intention of winning and of carrying on there-after the life of a virile community. In a paper before the Aeronautical Society, in June thisyear, I gave reasons to show that in the interest of the war we must care about the future of transport by aircraft. Iwill recapitulate the position under A, B and C, for there are three stages in the logic of the matter :—A. We are to have an Air Ministry and an Air Force ; the Act shows that they are not temporary—a token from whichalone we may say that we intend to have a fighting Air Fleet. B. An air fleet differs from a sea fleet in being much moreeasily expendible. No one would dream of rebuilding the British High Seas Fleet six or eight times per year of war,but an air fleet in action requires, and will continue to require, at least this. Thus the aeroplane has in this context theinteresting singularity of being intermediate between a cartridge and a battleship. It is not quite so rapidly ex-pendible as the former, but it is an expendible munition, and when we decide to have an air fleet we also decide, inlogic, on the third conclusion, C. C. This corollary is that we will maintain an aircraft con-struction organisation in peace that shall be competent to produce some six or eight air fleets per annum in war.At present we have such an industry—not large enough, perhaps, but we have at least a live and flourishing plantwhich is bearing fruit, which can grow, and which, be it noted, can also expire. A living organism can be killed bydeprival of oxygen. In three minutes a man is drowned, and 40 years' training of brain and hand can be thus quicklyreduced to an inert mass. Similarly rapid is the rate of dis- integration of a highly organised technical production depart-ment like the aircraft industry if it be starved. To-day war orders continue at full flood to fill up the wastage. If theystop suddenly we shall find within three months that the shop organisations are broken up, that all that remains to us isthe husk : we shall realise that we could, by timely measures, have saved much of our expensively purchased experienceand organisation, and have retained a value far greater than the mere buildings and plant. Once the designers and work-men are scattered, that which is so difficult and expensive to build up will be gone. Our capacity for the productionof aircraft will be an object of derision like a bouquet of hairs in an old broom.This simile will have succeeded if it has led a few score of persons to inquire, " What on earth are we to do to keepthis mechanism of production in being without keeping up in peace the war rate of expenditure ? " A part of theanswer was outlined in my first sentence ; we must so utilise aircraft on commercial duty, and so nurse it in its days oftrouble, that it shall itself earn the best part of its keep. If aircraft using can be induced to pay, aircraft making willof itself continue. But, in spite of the firmest belief in the value of aerial travel, the mere institution of services takestime. Neither three months, nor six months, nor a year, will see a thriving mercantile air fleet engaged on its routineduties and issuing its routine orders on which the construction business depends. Yet a less period of inaction than thiswill extinguish the industry. This is the period I ventured to call the " hiatus " in the discussion on Mr. Holt Thomas'shistoric lecture last May. To bridge the hiatus we must do something now. There is no other alternative. No oneexpects a continued unrequited expenditure of from £25,000,000 to ^50,000,000 per annum on aerial war materialin peace time. On the other hand, no one would object to our making even this large amount of aircraft if it nearlyearned its keep by remunerative services in any of the travel and transport businesses, or even if ve could be assured that,after a period of Government support, it would eventually draw near to the standing of a self-supporting industry.If we look back to the birth of the railway and the steam- boat we see that for some years they struggled against publicapathy—though their potentiality for good and for the * Abstract of a lecture delivered before the Royal Society of Arts onNovember 28th. creation of wealth and trade was almost as great in Watt'stime as now. In the case of the road vehicle, which we now call a motor-car, we had something worse than apathy—we had legislation for the alleged protection of the public, all meant in kindness—which killed the motor-car of 1837and retarded the car of 1892, till France was well ahead of us. In the case of dynamo electricity we underwent a process ofprotective legislation against shock and fire possibilities, which threw us well behind Germany and the United States.The story of legal impediments to scientific advance makes one wonder whether we are a free people—that is, withfreedom to advance, or are we only set on freedom to stagnate ?The greatest danger that aircraft has to fear, after public apathy, is legislative interference. It is not that the Britishlaw, excepting only when it is panicky, is worse made or more malignantly administered than another. The kindlyintentions of legislation towards the public are generally as laudable as our laws in technical matters are detrimental.Yet such a community as ours can only live and thrive on its technicians. Of legislation relating to aerial transportit may safely be said that it is a case requiring the greatest delicacy of handling. It must be taken as certain thatGovernment assistance, I do not say subsidies, for the in- dustry must be forthcoming unless it is doomed, but even ifthis assistance were certain there remains cause for anxions thought to-day.The danger of Government support lies in the conditions which a self-protective public is liable to impose before thetechnical possibilities are sufficiently known to form the basis for any sort of legislative interference. To-day we maysaf(,ly say that /50,000,000 worth of air-craft is yearly poured out from this country's factories. The large majority of this isflown to its destination, or used for tuition and defence at home, yet we still see the sun.Now there is no prospect for many a long day of any such ^50,000,000 output on commercial aerial transport. It ismerely necessary to recall that our total expenditure on merchant shipping is a mere fraction of this to see the absurdityof apprehending and legislating as if we were to have this immense user of aircraft. There is not the slightest proba-bility of any nuisance in excess of what little we suffer to-day, even if we had, which I see we shall not have, an aerial fleet ofthis magnitude. I have indicated the need for restraint in law making, butthere is also need for positive official action, if the bells that ring in peace are not to sound the knell of aerial activity.The Allies must, during the war, frame a joint policy as to the tolerance of each other's trader and postal aircraft, and agreeto air routes throughout the parts of the world which they control. With the large expanse of our colonies and our ownindustrial and postal importance, we have much to offer to the Allies which will be a valued equivalent for that whichwe shall obtain from them in the way of alighting rights. Being an island, and accepting, as.we must accept, the pro-position that the most significant section of aerial transport will be outside the confines of Britain, we need that ourAllied neighbours shall extend, not only tolerance, but welcome to our machines when engaged on their transportwork. International agreements, even though simple in subject-matter and non-controversial, are always long drawn out. Everyone who understands factory organisation will agreethat we cannot afford to wait until after the war for these parleyings to begin. Our aeronautical organism will assuredlybecome disintegrated too quickly. If we can get four or five willing men round a table to agree to admit aircraft mutually,to register them, to agree to simple preliminary rules of the road, and to agree that their respective countries shouldinitiate a few lines of landing-grounds so as to constitute safe routes, the early days of trade flying have little more to askfor from the Foreign Offices of the world. No doubt in some four or five years of active aerial transportorganisation work the paltry fifty or hundred aeroplanes of our early post-war efforts at transport travel will have grownup into a significant carrying trade for high-speed work, large quantities of aircraft will have been used for commercialpurposes, and it will be found useful to introduce, and there will be experience enabling us effectively to introduce,valuable regulations for the protection of passengers in air- craft, and the public on the ground beneath. At the presentday it is clear to all who have eyes to see that no adequate knowledge exists on which to frame rules with discriminationand without grievously hampering technical development. 1288
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