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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0108.PDF
to visualise a single Minister controlling the two. It is true that the combination might lead to a forward air policy in our Colonies, but this is only one aspect of the office. Therefore, we are driven back upon another line of speculation altogether. FEBRUARY 17, 1921 Why, we wonder, the sinister suggestion that the Prime Minister wants to save Sir Eric Geddes ? Save him from what ? From having to find a civilian job in which he would have to earn his money ? Or from going into the City to lose the £50,000 he was Can it be that the failure to fill the post of Air paid by the North-Eastern Railway Co. ? We do Minister presages an attempt to wipe out this office not like these suggestions of political " wangling." as a separate Secretaryship of State and that, pending They are too suggestive of the methods of the present the submission to Parliament of the necessary legisla- tion, Mr. Churchill is to continue nominally to fill it ? We can hardly think that this is so. We are too close to the War and all its lessons to believe that the Government can intend anything of the sort. Still, it will pay to keep a very close watch upon events, lest Parliament and the country should be caught napping and we should awake one day to find the Air Ministry among the things of the past. Government as we have got to know them. ADisquieting Suggestion In connection with the discussions which have arisen in consequence of the recent Cabinet changes, one of the Sunday papers—the Sunday Times, which is usually well-informed—throws out a very disquieting hint. It sets forth that at the end of last session there was a pretty strong feeling in favour of abolishing the separate Air Ministry, and though there will be no restoring separate naval and military air forces, it would not be in the least surprising if it were merged in the Ministry of Transport. " At any rate," says our contemporary, " the idea is being ventilated, and it is one cause of the delay in making the remaining appointments (to the Cabinet). Mr. Lloyd George wants to save Sir Eric Geddes if he can." The italics are our own. We believe we are right in saying that when the Ministry of Transport was being discussed, the present Minister would have been much more satisfied with himself and his new job if he had had the " co-ordination " of all transport, including that by air, placed under his fostering care. He got most of his way, but it was made clear to him that he could not have the air—even though he did succeed in getting the earth—without a more strenuous fight than the Government was prepared to face at the time. It would appear that there is more than slight reason to suspect that Sir Eric Geddes is now turning covetous eyes on the air, and would like to rehabilitate his somewhat shorn Ministry by taking over administration of its affairs. Heaven save us from any such fate! We have seen Elsewhere in this issue will be foundThe Future brief notes dealing with the latest, Research and last- ReP°rt of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, for the year 1919-20. With the matter contained in this report we need not deal here. A perusal of the report, however, must result in a realisation of the immense value of the work that has been carried out during the last few years, and in this connection we cannot refrain from a word of warning as to the future. Under the plea of economy the aviation industry has already been allowed to dwindle into wholly insignificant proportions. That is bad enough in all conscience, but it is realised that it was almost inevitable that an industry which was mainly a result of war conditions could not be maintained on such a scale after the War. With regard to research, however, one fears that there may be the same tendency to exercise rigid economy as that which has been applied to the industry. We should like to have an assurance that this is not so, for nothing could well be a more short-sighted policy than to withdraw financial support from the in- calculably valuable research work done by such institutions as the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Other countries are forging ahead, our late enemies no less than our Allies, and the present time, when com- paratively few experiments are required for the immediate use of manufacturers or of the Service, would appear to be most favourable for a resumption of those researches of a more general character which had to be abandoned owing to the exigencies of the War. - - - . . ' First and foremost among these, as far as wind tunnel experiments and full scale tests are concerned, are the problems connected with stability. One result of the work done during the War has been that the question of performance has been reduced, broadly, to a simple curve of loading per horse-power. how the Ministry of Transport has thrown railway While it may at first sight appear extremely unlikely administration into worse chaos than existed before that the very complicated problems of stability it assumed control. We have recently seen to what could ever be reduced to such simple proportions, length it will go in its attempt to drive motor trans- we have it as the considered opinion of at least one port off the highways—for that is what its new aerodynamic expert of world-wide reputation that scheme of motor taxation amounts too. We have ultimately it should be possible to evolve a formula seen how little it will allow the well-being of any for stability almost as simple as that of load per trade or industry to stand in the way of its grandiose horse-power is for performance. Before this can schemes. In short, we have seen enough of its be accomplished, however, an immense amount of methods to make us certain that no worse fate research and experiment must be done, and in could befall aviation, civil or military, than to be this connection we would urge that a large proportion placed under the heel of this Ministry of super-men— of the wind channels at the N.P.L. and R.A.Kwhich seems to be another name for muddlers. If the intention to dispose of the Air Ministry in this fashion is in fact present, it must be fought tooth and nail. No more certain way of killing aviation altogether could be devised than to make it a mere department of this useless section of the new bureaucracy. should be turned on to this class of work exclusively. Such comparatively simple experiments as wind channel tests on models of aerofoils, struts, wires, undercarriages, etc., can be done in the several minor establishments now existing in various parts of the country. A good many constructors now have their own wind channels where work of this kind ic8
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