FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0445.PDF
APRIL 3, 1919 hangar, would cost perhaps $100,000,000, according to Mr. Thomson. The work would take from three to five years and would give employment to 50,000 men. SOME coffer dam, any-way. IT'S as well that aerial mail services, just at the present period of development, when found should—d la Capt. Cuttle—be made a note of. Therefore we record a South African item in this connection, published by Mr. P. Hayman, of Long Lane, in the City, who received in January an air mail post card from a friend in Cape Town with a covering letter in which he writes :— " The aerial post card is genuine. We had aerial post here for one month. A major had charge of the aeroplane and made regular trips from Cape Town to the towns near. The cards (were sold at 6d. each for the benefit of the Red Cross and were franked by an ordinary id. Government adhesive post age stamp. They were posted in the ordinary way. The post office cancelled the stamp, put them in the post bags, and delivered the bags to the major, who, in turn delivered them by aero plane to the post offices in the various towns, whence they were delivered in the usual way by the post man." THIS card, pre sented by Mr. Hayman to the War Stamps Exhibition, now rests at the Philatelic Gal leries, no, Strand, where it can be seen by anyone inter ested. CARIBOU hunt ing by aero plane, as origin ally and very ingeniously ad vocated a few weeks ago in a'fascinating "article vaThe' Times, would now, according to Lieut.-Comdr. John G. Millais, R.N.V.R., appear to be a " wash-out." So those sporting pilots who had made all their preparations to join this very novel adventure in Canada, as outlined by Mr. W. H. P. Jarvis, can " dismantle " all their hunting plans. According to Comdr. Millais, he " can state without fear of con tradiction that, whilst it would be possible for aeroplanes operating from Hudson Bay or Athabasca to find the migrating herds of the so-called barrier-land caribou during their southern migration in the autumn (which at this season extends as far south as the north of Atillery Lake), it would be absolutely impossible for any fleet of aeroplanes to drive them in any given direction—even if it were possible to carry a number of drivers. It is well known to naturalists and \§ i* ^ffggg Crime in tHe Air Force. hunters that, whilst these deer follow certain lines of migra tion chosen by themselves, it is quite futile to try to drive them in any required direction. ... To get those thou sands of deer driven to the shores of Hudson Bay, and in so doing to separate the sexes, is the dream of some enthusiast who knows nothing about caribou." There is also the point for consideration, of thus slaughter ing herds of game animals to their ultimate extinction. HERE'S a matter which, if the aerial way is absorbed by that latest bureaucratic octopus, the Ways and Communications Bill, might well give work, over a few hundred years, more or less, for a special Department under the control of Sir Eric Geddes. In a recent article in the Mail entitled " Earth's New Year's Day," the statement is ventured that " in the revolu tion of the world the air is carried with us, or all things would be swept off the face of the earth." This has brought forth the fol lowing from a correspondent who says :— " This state ment reminds me of a pro blem that none of my scientific friends has been able satisfac torily to answer. It is this : ' To what height above the earth would an airship have to rise where, if it hovered in ether, its passengers would behold the world tra velling below them ? ' "Scientific people evade the problem by saying that an airship could not float in ether, and that its pas sengers could not live. But if the airship could thus as cend and its passengers could live and observe, what would thev see ? " BY way of a further instal ment for investi gation, the same correspondent continues :— " Here is another problem that always reduces my scien tific friends to mental chaos. Suppose a pipe, with a bore little larger than the thickness of a man's body, were pierced through the earth and a ladder ran through the length of the pipe. Assume a man starts through the pipe from London to an Antipodean island. He descends the ladder feet fore most, and he is going downwards until he reaches the centre of the earth. " When he reaches the centre of the earth he, presumably, will thenceforth be going upwards, until he emerges at the Antipodes. But how can a ladder on which one is descending become a ladder on which one is ascending ? Furthermore, how could one go up a ladder feet foremost ? Whenever I put this problem to scientific people they try to change the subject." Obstruction 445
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
