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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 1240.PDF
DECEMBER 2, 192a DURING the procession in Dublin last week of the bodies of the murdered officers, over the line of route from George the Fifth Hospital, near the Phoenix Park, and along the four miles of quays to the North Wall, on their way to England, aeroplanes travelled slowly. The drone of the engines above, heard in the hushed silence of the onlookers, sounded as a fitting funeral dirge for so sad a passing. Two R.A.F. squadrons formed this escort. Each squadron comprised six large machines, which were divided into two sections of three, each of which flew up and down the route in triangular formation at the lowest possible speed consistent with the maintenance of position. They commenced their operations shortly before the time announced for the start of the long and solemn cortege, and maintained their guard until a little after the coffins had been placed on board the destroyer at the North Wall. The distance between each machine was admirably main- tained all through the long flight, and the " dipping " as a mark of respect each time the coffins were passed over was done with considerable effectiveness. FOLLOWING no doubt precedent in the playing of light music by military bands upon returning from a funeral, the formation of the aerial escort was broken up after the embarkation, and, according to a reporter, the pilots " indulged in many playful and sometimes thrilling stunts on the way back to the aerodrome." INCREASED International postage rates, following the Universal Postal Congress, which this year has taken place at Madrid, are a matter of course in the near future. One thing the delegates have left an open question is air company service. Full liberty has been reserved for administrations running air lines to stipulate their own rate for the present. This .may be amended when the next Postal Congress takes place at Stockholm in 1924. Apropos Mr. Melville's article upon Air-post stamps, to which reference was made last week, he gives an interesting story relating to an " error "—those opportunities for collect- ors with long pockets to corner all other collectors' collections. The Air-post error instance he quotes is that of the bi-coloured 24-cents United States stamp with the picture of the biplane in the centre inverted. This " looping-the-loop " error, Mr. Melville states, was due to the placing of one sheet of 100 stamps in the press upside down for the second impression. The sheet thus printed in error escaped detection until it was bought over the counter at the Washington post office. It was subsequently acquired by Colonel E. H R. Green, the son of the celebrated Mrs. Hetty Green, for $20,000. He sold fifty-seven out of the 100, and then had the mis- fortune to lose the balance of forty-three, which he had kept for his private collection, in the wreck of his steam yacht United States on the rocks near New London, Connecticut, in August, 1919. Thus, although 100 of these errors were printed, only fifty-seven remain available to collectors today, the balance having been destroyed. . ADMIRAL SIR PERCY SCOTT, at a gathering last week of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers, made 3 bid for reviving the fatal policy of a dual Air Service. Speaking of the lessons of the War in regard to submarine versus battleships, in which he claimed, amongst other incidents, that the latter (which were not sent to the bottom) had, in the Mediterranean, upon the appearance of a German submarine, to hurry into harbour and lash merchantships alongside to protect them against torpedoes. " This looks," he continued, " very much as if the old naval standard had gone. What is the new one to be ? The only decision come to during the War was to take away from the Navy its most vital arm both of attack and defence, the Air Service ; this in my opinion was a terrible blunder. The only object of a battleship is to carry a certain amount of high explosives from this country into someone else's shipj or someone else's country , she can only carry a limited amount, she travels very slowly, is vulnerable to submarines, and also to bombs and torpedoes from the air.To spend seven million pounds on a transporter of a limited amount of high explosives, and in addition to pay in peacetime ^120,000 a year on her upkeep, does not appear to me to be a policy of economy." ALL of which looks like good sound commonsense, except the peevish misleading way Sir Percy refers to the bringing into being of the R.A.F. It seems a pity to spoil a good case by such tactics. WHATEVER is being done—or left undone—here, the Chinese seem to have awakened fairly well to the huge possibilities of aviation in their tiny terrestial holding. By way of a trial start an air mail service between Pekin and Tientsin was put into operation last June, and now this has been improved upon by the Chinese Cabinet authorising the linking up by air of the capital with Shanghai—a distance of about 700 miles. There are to be three intermediate stations- and 80 landing grounds. It is hoped that after carrying the mails for six months, a public service will have been secured which will carry both passenger and goods traffic. FURTHER, in this connection, at Birmingham this week an opportunity has been afforded of inspecting two light- houses built by Messrs. Chance Bros, and Co., Ltd., Smeth- wick. They have been made for the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and one is destined for Dodd Island and the other for the Shantung promontory. The former light is to be placed 147 ft. above sea level, and will be visible from a vessel's deck at a distance of 22 miles, the intensity of the beam being 331,000 candle power. The second light will be placed 220 ft. above sea level, and will have a visibility of 25 miles. THESE are sister-installations to night-flying aircraft guide beacons which the development of night-flying is bringing into prominence, under the enterprise of Messrs. Chance Bros. One apparatus which was seen at the same time as the above light-houses has acetylene burners giving a 500 candle-power beam, visible at a distance of nine or ten miles from an altitude of 10,000 ft. Another is a revolving light, a cluster of acetylene burners giving a maximum in- tensity of 2,645 candle-power, visible for 19 to 20 miles- from the same altitude. ANOTHER feather in the cap of the Hun is clipped in by Mr. Eastman, who at a conference last week of the Central Association for the Care of the Mentally Deficient and the National Special Schools' Union, at Church House, West- minster, stated the fact that in certain East Yorkshire coast towns several children born in the time of the air-raids1 were showing signs of mental deficiency. ALTHOUGH during a discussion last week by the Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee the project of employing aircraft for helping fishermen to locate shoals of fish was described as " bunkum," it was decided upon the motion of Col. Cornish to petition the Air Ministry to give a helping hand. The expense, it was considered, would be too great to be bome- by the Cornwall fishing industry. . DURING the unveiling by Sir William Robertson on Armis- tice Day of the Potteries' Cenotaph at Stoke-on-Trent, it is- alleged that Capt. O. P. Jones flew over the monument and dropped a wreath. This opened up a question of a breach of the provisions of the Aviation Act, 1919, which took the form of a summons in the hands of Police Inspector Adlem of Stafford for said alleged breach. The latter,, evidently a sportsman of the right calibre, upon being invited to have a flip when he arrived at the aerodrome to serve the summons, promptly accepted, and paid his footing by endorsing the summons " Served personally in mid-aiT,. November 24, 1920." Whether the Inspector quite expected such full value as a few " loops " thrown in is a question. 1242
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