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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0175.PDF
MARCH IO, 192I THERE are quite possibilities in the free offer of the Government of the nation's airships, subject to certain reservations as to their future. In one or two directions there are rumours. At least one definite offer has been made " to take over " the fleet by the Brompton Motor Co., who state they are serious in their proposal. The Secretary of the Company explains that if their proposition to the Air Ministry goes any further, it is their idea to employ the airships for commercial transport and adds :—" Our pro- position is quite a serious one, with capital at the back of it. Most of the persons concerned are ex-R.A.F. members, and have a thorough knowledge of aviation." MAYBE, but it will no doubt be up to the A.M. to see they get something pretty firm as to the proposed procedure, if it-only be guaranteed promises. FOR the purpose of handling the American overseas traffic, an air service is spoken of between Cuxhaven and Berlin, ' under joint Ainerican and German auspices. There is a touch of humour in this, having regard to the fact that the two countries are still, nominally at war. A SET of three particular postage stamps for use in the air post service between Spain and Morocco is about to be issued by the Spanish Post Office in a picturesque design by Don Bartholome Maura, of the Royal Mint, depicting a mail-plane flying over -a sunlit bay. The stamps are of 10, 25, and 50 centimes. AWAY in the Sacramento Valley, California, they evidently have imagination concerning the openings for utilising aeroplanes. According to a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, a trio of sportsmen have conceived the idea of catching wild waterfowl alive, above the ricefields of this district by seining them out of the sky with nets carried through space by an aeroplane. They needed live wild duck, geese, and brant for use as decoys when the hunting season opened, so they rigged up an aeroplane with two halibut trammel nets and proceeded to seine the wild fowl out of the skies. Two large steel hoops were made and fitted between the wings of the aeroplane, and from these hoops two nets were strung. These nets are funnel-shaped, and in the small end of each a circular piece of canvas was placed. When the aeroplane is on the ground the nets hang limply between the wings, but as soon as it gets into the air the rush of air through the nets and against the piece of canvas at the small end holds them straight out their full length. The aeroplane was fitted "with a heavy propeller, strong enough not to break when flying through a flock of fowl. IN three days of flying more than 500 ducks and geese were caught. From this number the sportsmen selected fifty of the kind they wanted—mallards, pintails, teal, and Canada geese. Only the young birds were retained, and the remainder liberated. For genuine thrills and sport, the correspondent claims netting wild fowl in the air makes all other outdoor sport pale into significance. The ducks cannot outfly, but can easily out-manoeuvre an aeroplane. . In consequence catching a desired bird in the nets called for some acrobatic flying. It was nothing uncommon for the birdmen to dash into a flock of retreating wild fowl, and then do a barrel roll in an effort to scrape a few more birds into the net. Sounds exciting, anyway. - How some people see things. An unbiassed view upon air-mishaps from the Birmingham Dispatch :— " BIG PARACHUTE TO LIFT CABINFUL OF PASSENGERS. " It is ninety-nine years since George Stephenson's loco- motive ran on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, but train smashes are still occurring. Yet nobody boycotts railway travelling as unsafe and goes on foot in consequence. " About an aeroplane crash, however, thousands of people wax hot and eloquent, and rave about flying being forbidden- Such folk cannot assimilate facts, or else they would realise the absurdity of talking about the risks of a new form of transit that can claim a record of only three people killed during a year's working of a service that carried 82,000 passengers and covered nearly 2,000,000 air miles—to be exact, 1,800,000 miles. " Happily, however, such a low percentage of risks, is likely to be even lower in future. There is not only the French engineer's invention now available for controlling stability of flight, but experiments are being made, said Major Orde Lees recently, for lifting a whole cabinful of passengers en bloc from a moving aeroplane by one great parachute." THE statement " An aerial taxi-cab in London costs ap- proximately the same as an earth-bound taxi in New York," of Prof. E. P. Warner of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, in his paper, " Commercial Aviation in Europe," read recently before the Commercial Aviation Session of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers, must make our London taxi-bandits green with envy. We only hope they will not be enterprising enough to secure a copy of our home " flip " tariffs, just by way of a guide as to the fare-figure to which they may themselves hope to soar—in their imagina- tions. THE information, however, is a bit discounted when the Professor goes on to state that " The charge in England for an aerial taxi is 2s. 6d. for two persons per mile, and an airplane can usually be had at an hour's notice." A THAMES AERIAL IDYLL: The Lion-enginedVickers "Viking" passes the Houses of Parliament towers. 175
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