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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0818.PDF
leave the ground without a puff of wind. They must give civil aviation that puff of wind to start it. No pioneer ever lived in the past. He always lived in the future, and he hoped all those pressnt wculd take as much part in the future of aviation as they had taken in the past. Maj.-Genl. Sir F. H. Sykes, G.B.E., K.C.B., C.M.G., also replied to the toast, but said Col. Moore-Brabazon had put the matter so well that it was difficult for him to add anything. His (General Sykes') work as a pilot was a very small" thing. If he had any claim to attention it was only that he was in aviation at the beginning, and he would like to say a few things with which he hoped the real pioneers in the hardest work would agree. When he saw around him friends of these old days he felt that an almost impossible task was imposed upon him. He referred to Roe, Sopwith, Ogilvie, Loraine, Jullerot, and one of the best pilots of the time, Samson, who started the Naval Wing, Brooke-Popham, Maitland, Long- more, and many others. He agreed with Col. Moore-Brabazon that it was to civil aviation they had to look for help in this big movement. Last year he was asked to try and help from the civil aviation point of view, and it was a proud moment for him. They were, as Col. Moore-Brabazon had it, only at the beginning of things. He did not think anyone couid have any doubt with regard to the future of aviation. The trouble before the war was that the knowledge of aviation was not widely enough dispersed. There was not sufficient belief amongst the public, not sufficient driving force from public opinion. He believed if they carried on the pioneer work which the original people who took up aviation did and believed in, and did not cease morning, noon or night, they would carry through this great development in the future as they had done in the past. Viscount Burnham, in proposing " Greetings to our con- freres abroad," said facts were generally brutal and dis- heartening thinga ; but in the case of aviation there was no disheartenment because fact was greater and stranger than fiction. From the first aviation had had a good Press. It had had no warmer advocate and supporter than his friend and colleague, Lord Northcliffe. He had been asked to move a resolution in the following terms :— " This assembly of the survivors of the first hundred British aviators, and the pioneers of British aviation, send cordial greetings to their United States, French, Italian, Belgian, and Portuguese confreres, and desire to make united acknow- ledgment of the glorious achievements of the United States, France, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal in the conquest of the air." General Smuts had said, in a well-remembered phrase, " Mankind has struck its tents, and is now on the march." He might have said more truly, " Mankind was now in the air." They had their heroes and their martyrs in the great enterprise. They had blazed the trail, if he might use the metaphor, when they led the armies in the war. They all knew that flying was in its infancy, and they were told, moreover, that it was going to change not only the conditions of living but the conception of life, and that before very long. Those assembled knew perhaps better than he did what we owed to the pioneers in aviation, especially in France and the United States, and he was sure that all present would give them honour for the enormous services they had rendered to the Allied cause. One great step in advance was that the twenty-three States now entered into the international con- vention promised much for the future development of aircraft and the air services. If the Air Service was to be all it should be they must hold together in the moving times ahead. He coupled with the toast the names of Commander Sable, the • French Air Attache, and Major Melvin Hall, the United States Air Attache. Commander Sable (Air Attache, French Embassy),in reply, expressed his deep appreciation of the tribute, and in return spoke of the devotion of the British pioneers. Major Melvin Hall said he seconded the response to the toast with great humility, as he thought himself unworthy to re- present his countrymen before such a gathering. But though his active connection with aviation only extended over a few years, his interest in it went back to some seventeen years ago, when he saw Wilbur Wright wandering round a field in a contraption tied up with string, and which had in its con- struction paper and drawing pins, before a sceptical audience. There were three separate periods of stimulus that affected the industry or science in America. The first was when the men who had flown here took up what he was proud to say one or two of his countrymen started. Yet he took that back, because he did not think any one country could claim men like Wilbur and Orville Wright. As General Sykes had said, aviation was international, and they were very proud that they came from America, and prouder to assure others who - JULY 22, 1920* had carried on the work that the first stimulus in America* came from those gallant gentlemen who went across to show- Americans what they were doing, and whose names were known throughout America today. America had not for a time followed up the lead that men like the Wrights had given them, and when they came into the war, the stimulus came largely from others who showed them how to win the war in the air. He took pride in doing honour not only to the pioneers but to the men connected with the aircraft industry, and the service of aviation in England, who showed the Americans the way, and sent over their best men to train them, and gave them their material even so far that they themselves were short, and gave them an untiring example- which they were proud to emulate. Aviation in America had suffered from the same infantile diseases which he believed affected it over here. He believed they were now getting on a sounder basis. They had great stretches of country, and he thought the future of aviation in America would perhaps follow in the footsteps of the motor industry. Motor-cars were at first looked upon as toys, but as the development of the motor-cars went on, the development of suitable roads went on, and they were now starting trying to induce munici- palities to build aerodromes, and hoped this would stimulate- aviation in the same way as the building of roads stimulated the motor industry. He assured British aviators that any- thing they had in America was at their disposal, and they believed that the future of aviation depended on the inter- change of ideas, experience and experiments of scientists and pioneers, coupled with a certain amount of healthy competition. Mr. J. L. Garvin, who proposed the toast of " The Future of Aviation," said he felt a considerable sense of trepidation at having to deal in five minutes with the most important subject ever entrusted to a speaker. If the future of aviation could not be more glorious than its past it would be larger. To speak of the future of aviation was to speak of the future of the world. Aviation had realised the greatest and most daring of human dreams through thousands of years. As regarded its future all he could say was that nothing in. civilisation, moral or material, would "be the same again. Aircraft must be more to us in the future what sea power had been in the past. The development of civil aviation was bound to follow military aviation. Secondly, aircraft was a new and heaven-sent means of bringing into closer and more- beneficent union the Empire that was saved in war, and it was his conviction that the concord between Britain and America would grow even stronger. In aviation they had a most compelling means towards the establishment and working of a League of Nations. The future of aviation must lie between closer and more rational co-operation and a more definite chaos, and he believed that the machines of the future would not be the legions of terror. Mr. H. G. Wells, in supporting the toast, said no State, unless it was the United States of America, could be self- sufficient in the air. The control of air navigation must be international, and the exploitation of the air must be inter- national. Until that could be realised aviation must remain very much where it was today. On the Civil Air Transport Committee there were occasional talks of all-red routes. There were no all-red air routes. Let them look at the map ofi Europe. There was no way out of these islands except over foreign territory. The nearest red point to us on the map of Europe was Gibraltar. The man who would make an air- station of the neck of Gibraltar was the sort of man who would try to sit down comfortably on an upturned tin-tack. Aviation had got all it was likely to get out of war. Its one hope was peace. The next stage in the development of aviation had to be a political stage. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu replied. He stated that most of the prophecies about aviation had come true. In his humble judgment, the airship was going to be the long-distance aircraft. It was not generally known that during the war over 1,000,000 miles were flown by airships. There had been few failures and the record was wonderful. By international agreement we should be able to fly over any country. He hoped we would soon see freedom in the air recognised among the nations of the world, as was freedom of the seas. The airship was only at the beginning of its career. He was certain that the future- of sea and air craft would be wholly beneficial to the world. The nations of the world had only to know each other a little- better and to minimise the difficulties of friction in order to lessen the chances of war. The Marquis of Londonderry expressed appreciation of the hospitality of the hosts, to which Maj.-Genl. Seely responded. Following the singing of the National Anthem, there were given three cheers for the King, and another three cheers for" the Duke of York. 8l8
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