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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0737.PDF
JULY 8, 1920 w~ AT the Aero Show, Olympia, July 9-20.—FLIGHT stand, No. 41 ; FLIGHT telephone number, Hammersmith 2110. THE monument to Wilbur Wright at Le Mans, France, is now completed and will be dedicated to this great aviation pioneer on July 17. LORD LONDONDERRY will open the Aero Exhibition atOlympia tomorrow (Friday) at 12 noon. MONDAY next, July 12, most of the survivors of the first hundred British pilots and pioneers of aviation will fore- gather at the Connaught Rooms for dinner. As already announced. Wing-Com. H.R.H. the Duke of York will attend the banquet, the arrangements being in the hands of a Committee of Hosts comprising General Seely (chairman), Lord Desborough, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Sir Robert Hadfield, Sir Charles Wakefield, Sir Samuel Waring, Sir Herbert Austin, Lieut-Col. Alan Burgoyne and Mr. Ernest J. P. Benn. It should be an historical re-union. IN the Commons on Monday the following figures of weight of mails between England and France were given :—" The average daily weight of letters and postcards sent by the ordinary mail from this country to Paris and places in France beyond Paris is 1,700 lb., including about 850 1b. for Paris itself. Precise figures of the number of articles are not available, but they are estimated at from 50,000 to 55,000 a day. The number of letter packets sent every week-day by the Air Mail to Paris averages about 85, and the total weight is from 5 lb. to 6 1b." WHAT a commentary upon the encouragement (?) by our authorities is the last paragraph. And what a source to draw upon for first class air-mail matter is indicated in the rest of the figures, thereby for ever giving the talk of subsidy its quietus, at the same time enabling the building up of the nucleus of an unassailable reserve in men and machines against any emergency. YET another " mysterious " fire at Cranwell, Lincolnshire, on July 2nd, resulting in about ^2,000 damage, followed by a Court of Inquiry on Saturday, still leaving the " mystery " unsolved. What is wanted is some smart detectives on the job to catch the lunatic—or is it lunatics—before the whole camp and contents are burnt out. But perhaps the police are too busily occupied elsewhere seeing motorists do not travel beyond 20 miles an hour on straight roads ! CANADA evidently intends perpetuating her magnificent air reputation gained in the War. From Montreal it is an- nounced that the province of Quebec is to organise an Air Force of 5,000, all ranks, mostly ex-soldiers. The Lieut.- Governor, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, has been elected hon. president, and Col. J. A. Scott (Quebec) hon. chairman. It is expected that Capt. Mostyn Lewis, of Montreal, will accept the post of permanent secretary. , . ^ , BY sending a ^40,000 diamond ring to London per the Airco air route, a careful Parisian jeweller reduced his risks against the ever alert railway thieves for this type of booty. Inci- dentally it might be noted the French luxury export tax •duty payable upon a gem of this calibre is about ,£3,600 ! Wonder whether that little dot was handed over to the authorities. It would take a particularly over-scrupulous owner to resist slipping that ring on to his finger, and travel- ling as its special wearer, thereby, presumably, dodging " customs " by reason of its being part of his ordinary "apparel." We wonder 1 .- =•. A SIGNIFICANT item of news is sent by the Daily Telegraph Malta correspondent, in connection with the war activities at present in operation against the rebellious Turks. A British vessel, which was patrolling the Anatolian coast in charge of the Greeks, saw an aeroplane crash on the mountains and, supposing it to be British, wirelessed to the British authorities. But there were no British aeroplanes in that locality. A landing party found the crashed 'plane to be a German machine, with wireless telephone, machine-guns, and bombs, all of the latest type. Later, they discovered some thirty German aeroplanes in course of construction, and two ready for flight. All of these were being erected by Turkish Nationalists. What the fate of these German aeroplanes was has not transpired. IN the same message the correspondent states that the self-sacrifice and the danger incurred by the British in rescue work in the Black Sea is not sufficiently known and appre- ciated. The seaplane carrier " Ark Royal " did two trips, with some 800 refugees on board, who embarked in an in- credibly filthy state. They were clothed in rags which had not been off their bodies for weeks. There were over 100 cases of gangrened wounds, the stench from which was awful. The ship's surgeon was busy all day on deck amputating limbs. Our men moved freely amongst these people, trying to alleviate their sufferings. They learned that these refugees had lain three weeks in a typhus hospital. Later, typhus broke out amongst the ship's company. IT was Miss Sylvia Boyden's thirteenth parachute descent from an aeroplane at the R.A.F. Pageant on Saturday. She is evidently not superstitious, or, like missing the reputed fatal number in streets, she would have skipped it and gone straight on to her fourteenth jump. Quite so, we are prepared to allot a medal to the solver of the problem. IN Madrid an original bull-fight is reported as having taken place on July 1 at the Vista Alegre Plaza in aid of a fund for the widow of Captain Collier, the English airman who was killed in an accident at Saragossa in April. The " swords " in this fight were four airmen, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, aa Italian, and an Englishman. • . THE bulls were small and young, but game. The in- experience of the toreadors resulted in the agony of the animals being unduly prolonged, except in the case of a bull killed by Captain Truelove, the British airman, who dispatched his adversary with one stroke. The enthusiastic spectators demanded that the bull's tail and ears be given to him, but, as tastes differ, he threw these blood-stained trophies to the crowd, somewhat to its astonishment. RATHER a tall story comes from a Berlin correspondent who sets out that the Germans, being afraid of the Poles holding up by sabotage the trains conveying voters to the East Prussian plebiscite, got leave to carry 3,000 by aeroplane. The Vossische Zeitung reports that the Poles have been systematically firing on these planes, setting two on fire, with the result that one pilot has been killed. This paper alleges that the Poles are sending back all voters whose permits are not stamped ; that half of the issuing officials are Germans and the other half Poles, and that the latter are intentionally omitting the stamp. There must evidently be more aircraft in being in Germany than some of our official reports would have us believe. THEY are looking ahead, aeronautically, in Scandinavian circles. Representatives of the Stockholm and Gothenburg aeronautical societies and the directors of the Gothenburg Memorial Exhibition have decided'to arrange an International Aviation and Flying Exhibition at Gothenburg in 1923. IT would be in the Land of the Free that the first aerial funeral should be recorded. This is reported as having taken place on June 29, when a clergyman, seated in a seaplane, piloted by Lieut. A. Frank Mallen, of the United States 737
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