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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 1107.PDF
OCTOBER 21, 1920 question of depreciation must be taken into account whenexamining whether or not a service pays, and although at present it was difficult to estimate accurately the value ofdepreciation, he thought that when it was taken into account the present services did not and could not pay. Mr. R. A. Bruce (Westland Aircraft Works)called attention to the danger of technical staffs being re- duced or dispersed altogether. He would suggest thatinstead of Government competitions and competitive designs it would be better to take, say, twelve firms who had provedtheir ability to produce successful original designs, and give each a definite task of developing some particular type ofmachine. In this manner the designing staffs would be kept together, and we would thus be preserving the seed from whichwould some day grow the golden harvest. •,.-;. Sir Charles Brightsaid that as regards the question of subsidies being contrary to tradition, he would point to the matter of cables, whichwere subsidised from the beginning, and that such a policy was recognised as being in the best interests of the nation. Mr. A. E. Berrimanexpressed the hope that the conference would take notice of the remarks made by Mr. Instone, who was a practical man,looking upon commercial aviation from a practical commercial standpoint. He (Mr. Berriman) had made some rough esti-mates which indicated that on a commercial service, taking the number of seats as the basis, the cost was ^600 per seat per annum. Taking the number of flyable days in the yearas 300, we obtained a cost of £2. As machines were not always carrying a full complement, but would probably average aboutone-half of their capacity, this figure would be doubled, i.e., £4 per seat. On the basis generally accepted that one musthave two machines on the ground for each machine in the air in order to run a regular service, the £A, became £12 perseat. He thought that it would be necessary for the Govern- ment to give some form of assistance and would suggestthat the best form which this could take would be a guaran- teed load at an agreed rate. General Sir Sefton Brancker ... declared that personally he was against subsidies as tending toencourage inefficiency, but at the same time he was forced to the conclusion that some form of assistance must be given.Commercial aviation had failed to pay mainly because con- verted War type of machines had been used. Capital waswanted for getting machines especially designed for commer- cial work, and if capital was forthcoming he was convincedthat commercial aviation would soon pay. If aerial transport had been placed under the Ministry of Transport a year ortwo ago, he thought it might by now have been in a very different position. In view of the time wasted in getting toand from aerodromes, he urged that serious consideration be given to the feasibility of building an aerodrome over VictoriaStation and surrounding district, as -some arrangement of that sort would certainly have to come sooner or later. THE DISCUSSION OF MR. WHITE-SMITH'S PAPER The paper read by Mr. White-Smith, entitled " TheOperation of Civil Aircraft in Relation to the Constructor," which was published in our issue of last week, was fol-lowed by an interesting discussion, a brief summary of which follows. The Chairman [Lord Weir) said that a good deal more had been achieved in aeronauticalprogress ftian was generally realised. Bringing home to the public the importance of aviation was one thing. To impressupon the Government its responsibility in regard to aviation was quite another thing. No Government could compelsuccess in aviation. Under present conditions, he said, only a very limited amount of capital would be availablefor aviation during the next few years, and it was important that this should be utilised for maintaining and expandingpresent enterprises rather than dissipated upon new schemes. The importance of the Cross-Channel services could notbe exaggerated, and these services had a claim upon the Government to see them through the early difficulties. Thatclaim for help coujjk not, he said, be disregarded much longer. He thoughr"That aviation had a better future inthe Dominions and abroad than in the Kingdom, but the present services were doing excellent work and were attractingprospective purchasers of British-built machines. Mr. F. Handley Paqs said that Mr. White-Smith had referred to the noise andother discomforts of flying, and to the cramped accommo- dation in passenger aeroplanes. With those remarks hecould not quite agree. On the contrary, many of the machines used on the London-Continent services were at least ascomfortable as trains as regards roominess, and then it should not be forgotten that in the air there was a completeabsence of dirt and dust. In' addition to this, passengers on an aircraft had the extra advantage of breathing mountainair during the trip, with the consequence that they arrived at their destination fresh and energetic instead of tired anddusty. He quoted one case showing the enormous advantage of air travel over ordinary means. The managing directorof a firm had business to conduct in Bucharest. By hiring a machine he was able to complete the journey from Londonin 18 hours. While at Bucharest he had business to transact in another town, which .he reached by air in a few hours,attended to his business and was back in Bucharest in time for dinner, thus saving two or three days on this local tripalone. The return journey was commenced on a Friday afternoon, and the gentleman in question was back in Londonon Monday morning. Regarding future developments, Mr. Handley Page said that he thought future machines wouldhave much smaller resistance than present ones, thus requiring only a small proportion of the maximum powerof the engines. While, as at present, the sending by air of mails was voluntary, he thought it was much easier to geta passenger than it was to get the same weight of mails, but if we came to carrying all first-class mails by air thereverse would be the case. Some of the figures given in Mr. White-Smith's paperwere too pessimistic. For instance, the actual cost per flying hour of the H.P. 0-400 was between ^16 and £iy,instead of £22 os. This reduced the rate per passenger mile to 6rf. Also the cost of engines had been over-estimated.Thus the cost of a Rolls-Royce, he thought, was /I,IOO.On the mattes of depreciation, he thought, in view of the rapid developments in design, it was better to write off amachine quickly in order to keep up to date. Regarding subsidies he was certain that operational industry can andshould be helped by some form of subsidy. It was often said that subsidies were against our traditions. He did notreally think there was any good reason for that. Thus in the case of telegraphs. He did not think that these paid,but it was then customary to call the difference a deficit at the end of the year, instead of calling it a subsidy at thebeginning of the year. Much had been said regarding the- stimulus of aviation. Unfortunately the industry could notlive on stimulus. He thought that what the industry needed from the Government was a little more of the feeding bottleand a little less of the policeman. Col. F. Searlepointed out that it had been found impossible to make a profit by using small two-seater and four-seater machines. Headmitted that the ccst of passenger travel by air was somewhat high, but pointed out that the services catered for businessmen whose time was valuable, and that we could not yet undertake workmen's fares. By the time one had taken intoconsideration everything the cost of air travel was not really so much greater. For instance, by travelling by air a mancould leave London in the morning, transact his business in Paris during the day, and be back in London in the evening.He thus saved two days of salaried-time, plus hotel expenses, taxis, etc., so that one should really add at least £10 to the£y of the railway fare. If this were done air travel would compare very well with the older methods. He stated thatthe wireless ground organisation at present is far from being what it ought to be and needs thorough overhauling. Theimportance of night flying had been pointed out, but before that could become a practical preposition we must have athorough lighting of the routes. Regarding profit earning capacity of aeroplanes, Col.Searle said that a machine costing £5,000 could earn £160 in one hour, which was surely very much better than one found inmost other business propositions. Calling attention to some practical points in connection with running air services hepointed out that 'bus engines do 3,000 hours a year for ten years, and that aero engines work under much better con-ditions. In the installation of most engines there was much to be desired. For instance, one engine had no less than sixrubber connections in its petrol system. This was very bad, and in the case of 'buses all petrol piping joints had been madeof metal many years ago. Then there was the question of cowling. Many engines had cowlings in which long wirebolts had to be withdrawn, instead of using fittings more on the lines of ordinary bonnet fasteners. Engine installations II09
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