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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0092.PDF
the Atlantic, does the Engineer think there is no future before commercial aviation ? Then our contemporary speaks of the speed factor being the only one that is primarily characteristic of this method of transport, as though speed mattered not at all. Surely the Engineer, of all journals, should know something of the prime importance of speed. Has it forgotten the enormous developments that have taken place in engineering simply and solely as a result of the striving for a little more speed ? Railways, shipping, mechanical transport of every kind, the mechanism of handling goods, and a dozen other examples which might be quoted, are there to point the moral that all engineering progress has been the outcome of a desire for speed and yet more speed. Why, then, speak of speed as though it were negligible as a factor in transport development. But there is no need to pursue the matter farther. Our contemporary may possess its soul in patience, for it is no more likely to be right about the future of the aeroplane than it was when it said of the motor- vehicle in 1897 : " The motor car has yet to be made. It may be that it has not yet been invented. . . . And then after all comes the question—are motor cars wanted ? Will there ever be so full a demand for them that money can be legitimately made out of their manu- facture ? There are not lacking those who assure us that the motor car has been slain by the tramcar and ihe bicycle. Time alone can settle the question." We can safely let it go at that ! 9 m • In a written reply to Mr. Joynson-Hicks Ai I^ce *^e otner day, Major Baird stated that the Air Force will be constituted as soon as the necessary administrative, financial and dis- ciplinary measures have been completed. There has not been, he said, and will not be, any avoidable delay, and pending the completion of arrangements for the unification of the two air services their control will remain with the Board of Admiralty and the Army Council. It is perfectly clear that the unification of two great Services cannot be accomplished in a day, and while it is doubtless necessary that a certain amount of vigilance should be displayed lest there should be any undue delay, we do not think anything but the embarrassment of the Government can be achieved by constantly worrying to know when this or that part of the unification is likely to be accomplished. We have a strong, able business man at the head of the Air Ministry whose task it is to see that the coalescing of the Air Services is brought about at the earliest possible moment consistent with fighting efficiency. From what we know of Lord Rothermere and his methods we do not imagine he is likely to tolerate delay that is avoidable, so that we are scarcely in sympathy with the people who require the city built in a night. Even- Lord Rothermere does not possess Aladdin's lamp. As an earnest that things are progressing, an Army Order has been issued notifying that the Adminis- trative Wing of the R.F.C. has been abolished as from the 15th January. A Reserve Depot, R.F.C., is to toe formed which will deal with the training of recruits. The officer in charge of R.F.C. Records will, in addition to his other duties, be responsible for the final approval •of recruits and for the transfer of rank and file to the Corps. Amendments have accordingly been made to King's Regulations. JANUARY 24, 1918. Brigadier-General Hearson, who com-The mands the Training Division of the Flying Man'sRFCi had some interesting things to Career. ^y -^> ^ stu(jents of the aeronautical section of the East London College last week. Speaking of the future of the Air Service, he said it would grow far beyond anything held in the imagina- tion of people not'directly connected with it, and not alone in numbers, but in power. "• You have," he said, " in the Air Service tremendous possibilities for the individual, and my advice to you is to go into the finest and biggest service of the future and win." It is quite clear the General Hearson is far from pessi- mistic about the future of aviation. As a matter of fact, he spoke as an enthusiast appealing to the imagination of the young men who will in the future constitute the personnel of the Air Service. As a rule, there is usually a tendency for the enthusiast to exaggerate the prospects of any movement or cause to which he is devoted, but in this case it is impossible foranycharge of exaggeration tolieagainst the speaker. For who that has given the matter the least intelligent thought is prepared to gainsay the fact that the Air Service is destined to become, as General Hearson said, the " finest and biggest " service of them all ? No one, we venture to say. For unless we are at the dawning of an era of complete disarmament and uni- versal and everlasting peace, the Air Service will before long become our principal line of defence. That any such Utopian period is at hand we, for our own part, do not believe. We should be the better pleased if we thought differently, but if anyone thinks that one principal result of the present world-conflict is going to be the total wiping out of war as a means of settling international disputes, he is, we are firmly con- vinced, completely mistaken. So long as human nature remains as it is, and so long as the ultimate basis of communal life is physical force—as it is and must be— so long will the last appeal be to the ultima ratio regum. Nations will still act on the presumption that the best guarantee of peace is to be prepared for war, and arma- ments will be retained, possibly not on the same colossal scale as they had assumed prior to 1914, but still on a standard which will fall very far beyond the total disarmament visions of the Utopians. And aerial defence will be well in the forefront of prepara- tion, since one of the principal lessons of the present war is that whoever controls the air can take a decision where and when he desires. In fact, in the years to come it will be found that air power is even more essential to national and imperial safety than sea- power, which in its turn connotes that we must have an air fleet as preponderatingly strong as the British Navy is to-day. Therefore, to pursue the question to its logical conclusion, it becomes perfectly clear that General Hearson said no more than the patent facts warrant and that the advice he gave to the students was eminently sound and to the point. - The whole mass of intelligent opinion 1%e of the country is behind the Government question and its new- Military Service Bill and Man-Power, against the selfish, unpatriotic attitude of certain of the skilled workers whose whole creed seems summed up in : " Everyone to his duty but us ! " The plain facts of the situation are that we have arrived at the most critical period of the war, when Britain must put forth her supreme effort to hold the front until the American field armies can get properly going. Owing to the defection of 88
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