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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1352.PDF
NOVEMBER 28, 1918 capable of running successfully the gauntlet of extraordinary risks such as never occur under peace conditions, as instance the use of them to harry infantry, and so forth, from altitudes of a few hundred feet only. In other words, war has enabled flying machines to prove themselves capable of achievement enormously greater than any one would have be.en justified in imagining possible before the outbreak of the campaign, and more than sufficient for the standard of civilian needs. The far greater risks naval and military airmen have engaged in during the war produce, inevitably, a reflex action on the minds of the general, in that, whereas formerly people spoke of the occasional accidents of flying as being very, very grave, now the general attitude is to draw attention to the regularity of flying performance and to stress the infrequency of failures. Hence one is glad to observe that in schemes for post-war passenger aerial services, for example, such as they are now so busily engaged upon bringing into being, the more responsible of the leaders of flying enterprise are basing each on the assumption that on occasion there will be failures in individual performance. Therefore the necessary provisions are to be made in the matter of supplying spare machines, establishing stations at frequent intervals, and other requisites of bringing into being properly organised services. These • are all cardinal features of the responsible schemes. All this makes for the further establishment of firm public con- fidence in the present and future of flying. Financial A spects—Sound and Otherwise At the moment when we are in prospect of passing from the age of dreams to the realisation of man's age-long wish to travel through space, it is as well to have in mind that this is either about to be made possible or impossible, not by the further advance of aerial science and of aircraft con- struction, but solely by the aid of finance, without which every scheme would fail to mature. The financial aspect of flying is divisible under many heads. One may touch on a few of them briefly. Is British flying enterprise to be throttled at the outset by legislation and bureaucracy, or is the way to be made and kept clear for that British genius for individual enterprise, by which alone we did our splendid share of winning the world war, and without which stagnation becomes a mere matter of time ? Is private and public aeronautical enter- prise to be fostered or quashed ? We have to find big sums of money for manufacturing and maintaining the equipment for aerial transport enterprise. Before the war practically all aircraft manufacturing worthy the name and conducted with some regard to the canons of commerce, was done by private enterprise. Consequently undesirable practices were in the main to seek. At a period when it exercised most arbitrarily its veto to control the issue of appeals to the public for fresh capital, nevertheless during the war we had the scandal of the Treasury sanctioning efforts on behalf of utterly indefensible aircraft schemes while repressing others that were thoroughly desirable. As a result the movement has not been merely injured in temporary fashion ; it has, besides, been injured permanently by Government action. Past financial scandals echo down the years. Alas ! in this country we cannot say that there has been one such case only ; we have, instead, to speak in the plural. Those of us who pioneered the aviation move- ment are agreed that we did not risk our lives, not spend our time, nor put ourselves to charges in connection with early endeavouring to travel through space for any such ignoble thing as that or the further establishment of bureaucracy though we foreknew clearly that one of the great uses to which, aircraft would be put would be in connection with whatever war should break out first after the evolution of practical aviation. Even as war is not the noblest and most gainful use to which man can put aircraft, so are the enriching of company pro- moters, or the provision of an extravagant means of liveli. hood for a spell on the part of adventurers, or the establish- ment of Government control to provide jobs for Placemen, not ends for which we have striven without thought of personal gain but wholly for a noble enthusiasm. Conse- quently, all those who are honestly enthusiastic about flying, pioneers and new comers alike, should take any and every opportunity to warn the public in general that its financial aspect has already been seared, even as was that of motoring in the early days ; and that to-day the future of flying is gravely menaced by political jobbery. My aim is not to train the public to withhold capital from aviation enterprise. On the contrary, it is eminently desirable to increase the flow of public money in the direction of developing sound aerial enterprise to a greater extent gven than the public is prepared for to-day ; but we must teach that public, even if its interest in flight is merely one of cupidity, that there are financial schemes and financial schemes in connection with flying ; that there will always be such ; but that, if it makes its vote and voice felt, it can exterminate here and now the fatal blight of bureaucracy, of whose threat to the movement anon, and can protect itself against bucketshop schemes. Fortunately, interest in flight is becoming so widespread that investigation within the normal compass of the individual, provided it is always carried out in more than one direction, should enable one to discover where are the flaws, if any, in a given scheme. It must be had in mind that it is to the gain of the movement in general, as well as for the good of all who are honestly engaged in it, that every bad financial scheme brought forward hereafter should be nipped in the bud in place of going through, as alas, a certain number have gone through in the past. Every time a sovereign is secured for what may be styled company swindlers—one is not writing idly, for of course the City company promoters, of whom relatively little has been heard during the war, have been hatching schemes wholesale in connection with the new move- ment—ten pounds are lost to the future financing of legitimate flying enterprise, because once a believing section of the public get bitten it holds off the very propositions which it should support. In the times that are coming it is eminently desirable that the public in general should finance quite a number of sound British aircraft schemes. For one thing, it widens the intelligence of those who have a stake, therefore a personal interest in the wellbeing of the movement. The more " small people " you get financially interested in a given movement the wider spread becomes understanding of that movement. One convert to the practical value of flying makes at least half a dozen every year. We have arrived at the stage when we want the world to recognise the truth ; if we will but pursue our opportunities flying is part and parcel of our work-a-day life. Who are the Future Buyers of Aircraft ? This brings us to the next financial phase. Who are to be' the buyers of aircraft hereafter ? The Government should be the biggest buyers ; but, possibly, to a large extent it would purchase aircraft made more or less in its own factories. At least there will have to be a very radical change over the moods that have predominated hitherto if the fact proves ' otherwise. In any case, when we have in mind the big factories, including the Government owned ones, all over the country, and the cry for employment, doubtless many Service machines will be made by the Government ; but we should be able confidently to look to the Government to obtain fleets of postal and such-like machines direct from the industry. However urgent the need to economise expenditure now the war is over, nevertheless we must have always a big scale aircraft enterprise exploiting native genius and individual initiative to the limit. Therefore, it is obvious that those Services of the Government which pay their way, such, for example, as the coming aerial post, should be supplied by equipment obtained in open market direct from the industry. Bringing Flight within the Purse Range of Folk of Small Means But if the flying movement is to attain anything like full development by far the greatest output of machines made in these islands must be for the supply of aerial equipment for transport companies and private sportsmen. This first category one puts as most important by reason of the fact that, if the thing is traced to an end, you embrace a public which is a thousand to every one who can be mustered to buy and maintain his own flying machine. Doubtless it is the wish of at least 30 per cent, of the inhabitants of these islands to make aerial journeys irrespective of their time-saving and such like advantages. Unquestionably, point to point aerial voyages, as distinct from the soon-to-become obsolete flight round an aerodrome, will be a big feature of aerial enterprise in the near future. Thus, the passage from north to south London which, by any means of the locomotion available, occupies an hour or more, but could be made in a few minutes and at a cost of a shilling or so per head—cer- tainly no dearer than present railway charges—by aerial omnibuses taking a sufficiently circuitous route to avoid thickly populated areas. This phase of the development, however, will not commence yet awhile, a remark that applies equally to taking workers up to cities in the morning and conveying them back at evening by aircraft. London to Paris, London to Rome are by no means the only aerial transport lines that need and which will be established in 1919. Certainly, in the near future by reason of the time saved, and of the fact that the cost need not exceed that of first-class railway train service to-day, we shall have regular U53
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