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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0682.PDF
factories to work to a specification that would oblige German civil aircraft to land every 300 or 400 miles, and would' not enable them to rise above 8,000 to ^9,000 feet. :; It is obviously necessary for the safety of the Allies ; that some such limitations should be imposed upon Germany in the matter of her civil aircraft programme. L"-. Nobody is so foolish as to think that she has any present intention of embarking on a war of revenge, \. but it must be perfectly obvious that to allow her -to build large numbers of machines capable of almost • : instant conversion from the purposes of peace to those of war is to invite her to try her luck once •„ again. When we are dealing with a nation like ;':•• Germany, which regards the most solemn obligations as mere scraps of paper, to be torn up when it suits her book, we cannot afford to take chances. Quite clearly it is time the definition spoken of was framed and communicated to Germany and a rigid adherence to the specification insisted upon. • • • .'•••••••"•_ Apropos German aviation expansion, Mr. Holt Thomas points out that the < • Aspect question of disarmament is serious enough, but of comparative insigniii- . cance to the position which will arise when the terms ••_ of the Peace Treaty have reached their limitation. If under all the restrictions as to construction, limited as Germany is to her own territory, she carf conduct 6,000 miles of air routes flown over even7 day, it is not difficult to imagine what German air lines will do when she is entirely free. The more nations disarm, he says, the more serious becomes the menace of any nation, hostile to the peace of the world, possessing large aerial fleets ostensibly for civil purposes. The progress of rapid communication provided by the aeroplane cannot be stopped. The freedom of the air cannot be denied, and it is certain that Germany, immediately she is free, will have air lines running all over the world and, what is more important to us, all over the British Empire. This is exactly what we have argued all along. Jt is impossible to deny the freedom of the air to any nation, just as much as it is impossible to deny the freedom of the seas to any who will observe the elementary laws imposed by civilisation. Un- questionably, Germany will seek to expand her trade by means of the employment of large aerial fleets, and, once she is- free of the trammels of the Peace Treaty, no one can say her nay. Nor would they wish to, provided she is prepared to adhere to the laws and usages laid down for those who go by air about their lawful occasions. All this is perfectly clear, and it is just as clear that the only answer we can make is through predominating British air lines, created before Germany has time to get going on her programme. Mr. Holt Thomas urges that a modern aeroplane will carry a ton of first-class mail matter at is. per ounce from London to Australia in four or five days, in organised stages such as London-Paris. As a commercial proposition it only wants, he says, the ton to be forthcoming to see the establishment of a weekly air mail throughout the Empire, before it is done by Germany. This looks like a challenge to the Postmaster-General. Will not somebody put the direct queston to Mr. Kellaway in Parliament: Will he, if a firm, or combination of firms of sufficient standing and repute, are prepared to run such a service^as a commercial proposition, find the necessary 68a OCTOBER 20, 1921 ton of mail matter ? The matter is very serious indeed, and a straight answer is needed to an equally straight question. Sir IanHamilton and the _ - -JUr • In his book " The Soul and Body of an Army," General Sir Ian Hamilton makes use of a phrase which at once conjures up all the old-time romance of the sea, excepting that in this case it is the air to which he refers. Speaking of the future of mechanical warfare—and he believes that war will be almost entirely mechanical—he says, " We must tame the tank and the aeroplane ; they've got to be as familiar to us as taxis. Boys must run away to the air as Lord Reading, Masefield and other famous men have run away to sea." We confess that this is a new idea to us. We had never visualised a time when the life of the airman would, like that of the sailor, attract the youthful imagination to the point at which the boy would " run away to the air." Of course, the air has a wondrous attraction to the young lad whose future has not been determined by himself or for him by his parents or guardians, but we live in so matter of fact an age that we had really thought the idea of running away to sea had been exploded years ago. But, when we come to think of it, we suppose that boys do still run away from home to make for the nearest seaport, full of all sorts of fantastic ideas of the wondrous lands beyond the Seven Seas and the romance of life on board ship. So too we can imagine the youth whose thoughts, have turned to the air leaving his home in the early morning before others are astir, and setting his face, bundle in hand, towards Croydon or Lympne, or whatever airport he may in his mind have chosen to be the starting point of the great adventure. We see him arrived there, footsore and weary, but full of a great hope in the future of his life as an airman. He may be fortunate and find himself shipped, on board an aircraft bound for the outermost confines of the earth, and then ? he, like his predecessor who ran away to sea, find himself disillusioned and that life in the air is not all he had pictured it, or will he be so carried away by the sheer romance of it all that he will adopt the air as his lifers career ? Will he, like many who have done the same thing by the sea, rise by ability and close study until his name shall go down to posterity as one of the great air com- manders ? Will he—but these are visions conjiired for us by Sir Ian Hamilton's chance manner of puttingHit. But the vision is so full of glamour that we could wish we were many decades younger. We would run away from home to the air. ** *s statec* tnat tke ^rst omcial steps T* * F d have been taken towards replacing the Me'sopo- greater part of the army in Mesopotamia tamia by units of the R.A.F., according to the plans approved a year or more ago. If the R.A.F. can justify expectations, it will mean a saving of many millions a year to the overburdened British taxpayer, besides affording a great object- lesson in the value of aircraft for carrying out the almost purely police duties of an army of occupation. The whole of the forces in Mesopotamia, including troops and R.A.F., are to be under the command of Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond. This again is a precedent which is very likely to be followed largely in future where such tasks as that of keeping
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