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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0084.PDF
COMMERCIAL AVIATION THE LIGH By Major-General Sir F. H. SYKES, ON January 7, General Sir F. H. Sykes gave the following highly instructive address before the London Chamber of Commerce, Lord Desborough presiding :— The subject on which you have kindly asked me to speak is commercial aviation in the light of war experience, and 1 am proud that it is, I think, the first time that the Chief of Staff of a fighting service has spoken publicly in regard to the commercial aspect of his service. I hope perhaps this departure may betoken a new and helpful method of assisting in the working out and fusion of the efforts of the service and civil side. Aviation in aiy form is but a dozen years old, a fact we are all apt to forget. It is not possible within the time at my disposal to deal with the past and the future, and I propose, therefore, to confine myself almost entirely to the latter. I have, however, had' prepared an account of the development and effort of the air forces of the Empire during the War, and this will, I hope, be published before long, and will serve as an intro duction to the study of the problems of the future with which! propose to deal to-day. I do not doubt that when the facts are known, the unification of the air services and the creation and the maintenance of an Air Ministry will be amply justified. In the Ministry is concentrated in the written records and in the experience of the various branches, all the data at present existing, not only of Naval and Military, but also the major portion of commercial knowledge, the dissipation of which could only lead to confusion and redundancy. I believe that air forces have become and will remain a leading consideration in questions of national and Imperial defence. The day is indeed not far distant when aircraft will rank equally with, rather than supplement, other and older forms of war material, and strategy will be profoundly modified. Peaceful Use for Service Aircraft.—A feature which dis tinguishes military aircraft from other forms of warlike p~eparation lies in the peaceful and useful employment to which they, unlike tanks, for instance, are also adapted. They constitute a means of undertaking public and political work of the highest value. They can be employed in opening up far-distant and inaccessible portions of the Empire, in survey and mapping, and in postal and other communication services in districts as yet unreached by private enterprise. Aviation is now on the threshold of a new existence in the realms of civil and commercial life. The opportunity is unrivalled, the conditions ideal, and we must guide it along right lines. Above all, its progress and development must inspire confidence on the part of the public and the business community. There must be no flash in the pan or exploitation of a new industry by ignorant or unscrupulous persons. If public confidence, either in the safety and security of flying, or in the ability of aviation to take its proper place in relation to other and older-established means of transportation should once be shaken, a set-back may be experienced from which it may take many years to recover. Sure steps are necessary, and no attempt must be made to achieve the impossible. Consideration of the future development of commercial aviation naturally leads us along certain main lines of thought. First, there is the technical aspect—here we shall pit the brains of our inventors and engineers against those of the whole world, and we have no reason to fear the issue. It is true that in some other lines of inventive work we have left it to others to gather the fruits of our pioneering. In aviation, however, we have gained for ourselves the foremost place in design and technique of aircraft and engines, and British manufacturers may safely be trusted to maintain and impiove their position. State assistance in design and research work, it is agreed on all hands, must continue. A policy of " safety " must prevail, and the aerial " Plimsoll" line and the " Ai at Lloyd's " must brand every British aircraft with the hall mark of quality and security. Risks and Danger of Flying.—I would like to make a passing reference to a subject on which there is a very con siderable amount of popular misconception. I refer to the risk and danger of flying. This, in reality, is very much less than is often supposed. The improvements which have taken place in the design and construction of aeroplanes and engines have brought us to a position in which, with prudence and judgment, the risks of flying are very small, apart from the danger attached to the process of the training of pilots. Even here, the records of our training organisation clearly IN T OF WAR EXPERIENCE K.C.B., C.M.G., Chief of the Air Staff indicate that a considerablefproportion of the accidents which occur are due to higher war training in aerial fighting and formation flying and to the arduous conditions under which this training is carried out. Even under these conditions fatal accidents have been surprisingly few, and the average haa now reached the high^figure of 1,170 hours per fatal casualty. Some idea of the risks of flving mav be gained from the following facts :—Since January, 1916, 3,340 officers have been killed on the Western Front. The strenuous nature of the fighting is well known, and nearly all these have been due to battle and only a small proportion to accidental causes. The total flying done during the same period has been close on 1,000,000 hours, or 114 years. It is also very satisfactory to note that with the disappear ance of the enemy's bullets has disappeared the principal cause of fire occurring in aircraft. I think we may say that under present-day conditions, the chances of a passenger safely reaching his journey's end in a modern machine conducted by a skilful pilot and operated under proper conditions, are not far short of his chances of safe arrival by the older and more familiar means of transportation. Financial.—I do not propose to deal with the financial aspect, but only to emphasise the necessity of keeping in mind the two independent industries involved : the con structive and the operational, and to indicate that it is necessary to work on the analogy of other forms of transport such as shipping, in which you have the great building firms and the firms which operate the traffic. Operational Possibilities and Limitations.—In regard to the operational possibilities and limitations of commercial flying, I want, first of all, to make a little official statement and explanation. As you know, all civil flying has been pro hibited during the War, and, although fighting has ceased, we are still at war. As Lord Weir announced recently in a public speech, draft legislation for the governance ol civil flying is being prepared and is being pushed on with all speed. But the work and difficulties involved are very great, and it is most important that even at the expense of a little delay, a really sound position should be arrived at. At the same time, the Air Ministry recognise fully the necessity of early action, so that the present restrictive orders may be, as far as possible, removed. Otherwise we might easily find ourselves at a disadvantage as compared with other countries in the early development of civil flying. Interim Regulations for Civil Flying.—It has now been found that this private and domestic legislation depends for its character on the findings of the International Conference, and, to avoid delaying the commencement of private flying in this country, a preliminary set of regulations have been drafted and, it is hoped, will come into force during the first few weeks of the new Parliament. This brings me, naturally, to the subject of some of the competitions which have been discussed and particularly to the magnificent offer of the Daily Mail of ^10,000 for the Transatlantic flight. With the enacting of the interim regulations I have referred to, this flight will, as far as Great Britain is concerned, be made open to all comers, including our friends in America. Transatlantic Flight.—I should like to say a little about vhat is involved in this particular enterprise. It has long been under consideration at the Air Ministry—not, of course, with a view to the prize—and last June arrangements were seriously commenced with a view to testing the posi- bility of bringing aerial reinforcements from America and also of being in a position to render all possible assistance to those wishing to make the attempt. The problem is not so much one of endurance of the machine and personnel but of navigation, meteorology and wireless. I shall say more on these subjects later, but as regards the first, you will appreciate that a straight course must be kept, both by day and by night, in thick or fine weather, in winds whose force and direction it is difficult to gauge in the absence of any fixed points of reference. For instance, a small error in bearing may easily be sufficient to miss entirely so small a point in the Atlantic as the Azores. The meteorological difficulties are due, first to our lack of knowledge of upper air conditions in the mid-Atlantic: and, secondly, to the fact that the prevailing winds in this area set from west to east. The Atlantic is large enough for a complete low-pressure system to exist in the centra without being discernible or measurable at the sides ; and
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