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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0005.PDF
JANUARY 2, 1919 JEfeliiS considerable qualification. Speaking of the opposi" tion to the creation of the Royal Air Force as a single Service, the writer said : — " There was vet another opposition to the R.A.F., and this, coming from a certain section of the aeronautical trade, was strongly voiced in the trade Press." The context of the article suggested that for obvious reasons the " trade press " had placed com mercial self-interest away in front of the National good. We are not going to discuss the question at large or to debate whether there was opposition or not from a section of the trade and the aeronautical press. All we are concerned with is our own record in the matter. As to this, our readers know the attitude which has been taken up and maintained by " FLIGHT " ever since we first laid it down that it was desirable that the flying services should be separated from the Navy and Army and formed into a single service of their own. Desiring to dissociate ourselves from the statement made by the Daily Mail, we addressed the following letter to the Editor :— "December 23rd, 1918. " To the Editor, tlie Daily Mail. "SIR,—Referring to the article entitled 'Brotherhood of the Air ' by ' An Aeronautical Correspondent ' in to-day's issue of the Daily Mail, the main facts, principles and position are most admirably summarised and dealt with by your correspondent. There is, however, one statement to which we take the most serious objection. He states : " ' There was yet another opposition to the Royal Air Force, and this, coming from a certain section of the aeronau tical trade, was strongly voiced in the trade Press.' " Presumably the ' trade Press ' in this instance includes ' FLIGHT,' and having regard to the fact that the creation of a single Air Service with an independent operating force, with one uniform and one badge, was first advocated in ' FLIGHT,' and was thereafter month in and month out ham mered in as the only thing to be done to get maximum Air Service efficiency, and that at long last, in spite of the most virulent attacks from other quarters, the co-ordination took place, and entirely upon the lines laid down in 'FLIGHT,' your correspondent should hardly have slandered ' FLIGHT ' so irresponsibly and light-heartedly as he appears to have done. We would ask you to publish this disclaimer in your very widely circulated paper, as we do not feel justified in allowing such a libel upon ' FLIGHT ' and its Editor to stand uncorrected. " Yours faithfully, " THE EDITOR." Our surprise may be judged when we found that the letter was not published, but that this extract had been made from it :— " The Editor of ' FLIGHT ' writes : ' The creation of a single Air Service, with an independent operating force, with one uniform and one badge, was first advocated in ' FLIGHT,' and was, month in and month out, hammered in as the only tiling to be done to get maximum Air Service efficiency" The clear inference that the casual reader would draw from this is that we had set ourselves to obtain a gratuitous advertisement of any services we may have been able to render in the direction indicated, whereas our sole object, as must be apparent from a perusal of the letter we wrote to the Mail, was to nail down what amounts to a libel on " FLIGHT." In the circumstances, we do not hesitate to say that the Daily Mail has not acted in consonance with the best traditions of journalism by suppressing the context of the paragraph it has done us the dis service to extract from our letter. These may be the methods of Carmelite House, but they are cer tainly not along the lines of common decency, let alone " cricket." <•> <s> <$> <$> A PROMISING FLYING BOAT The " Phoenix-Cork," built by the Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Co., Ltd., ol Bradford. This machine has put up some excellent performances after passing its experi mental stage, but as the Armistice came along just as the machine was being put into production, it has not yet had an opportunity of proving itself extensively on active service. The machine is fitted with two Rolls-Royce "Eagle" engines. ;
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