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Aviation History
1922
1922 - 0207.PDF
APRIL 6, 1922 LONDON-PARIS BRITISH AIR SERVICE LAST week two gatherings for luncheon took place on Tuesday (at the Hotel Cecil) and on Wednesday (at the Criterion)—the first to celebrate the successful completion of the first year's operations of the subsidised British Air Services, the hosts upon this occasion being the Directors of Handley Page Transport, Ltd., and Instone Air Line, Ltd., and the second function to " christen " the new Daimler Air Service, which started on Monday last. The "H.P. "-Instone Meeting LORD GORELL, Under Secretary of State for Air, occupied the Chair at the Hotel Cecil, and, in proposing "Success to the British Aeronautical Industry," said that the two lines within the last twelve months had done much good by instilling into the public the sense of flying. Not very long ago, a passenger from London to^Paris handed the pilot sixpence on landing at Le Bourget. He welcomed that spirit, because it showed that that passenger, at any rate, had had such a comfortable journey that he thought he was in a taxi. Then there was the case of a lady, who chartered a machine to fly to Harrogate, and on descend ing there said : " Wait, please." These instances could be multiplied, and they showed that the sense of ordinariness in the air was beginning to dawn on the British public, and when it dawned civil aviation would go right ahead. Messrs. Handley Page Transport, Ltd., and the Instone Air Line, Ltd., who had both been running regular daily cross- Channel services during the past year, had had a good deal to do with inculcating that spirit into the British mind. In regard to the cross-Channel service, Lord Gorell men tioned that their two hosts would be joined in the next few days by a third firm—the Daimler Company, and he was glad to welcome them. The two lines from March 19 of last year until the present time had made 526 trips in British machines from London to Paris, and had carried 2,989 passengers, while in the same period 775 trips with French machines had taken 2,043 passengers. In the other direction, from Paris to London, British machines made 524 flights and carried 2,709 pas sengers, and French machines 787, carrying 2,380 passengers. The totals were : British machines, 1,050, with 5,694 pas sengers, and French machines, 1,562 with 4,423 passengers. He had always held that for the ultimate and general development of civil aviation they must look even more to goods than to passengers, but he was afraid that the position in this respect had not been so successful. He had only the figures for the seven months between August, 1921, and February of this year ; in that period, the two French firms carried fifty-three tons of goods and the two British firms only sixteen tons. He hoped that in the coming year every effort would be made to change the proportions. Continuing, Lord Goreil said that in the last week aviation had won a great victory. The Air Ministry had had to battle for its very existence, and had finally come out triumphant. A good sign, he thought, was the more rational interest taken by members of the House in aviation. They had realised what air power meant, and that gave promise that when more was asked for by the Air Ministry there would be a strong section of Parliament which would support them. Mr. Handley Page, in responding, said he first wished to offer recognition of the great work which Mr. Cogni, their General Manager, had done for the cause of aviation, bjr his indefatigable zeal in promoting its interests. It was with some satisfaction he could state that his company had flown 70,000 miles with a cost for breakages of only /50. That reflected the security and safety with which the passengers had travelled. Though 10,000 passengers had been carried between London and Paris, they ought to have been carrying more than that number between this country and our Colonies. What he wished to urge upon the authorities was that the lines abroad, the little places we had got to reach eventually, should be thrown open to British enterprise and developed under commercial auspices, rather than as part of a military unit, although he in no way meant to disparage the magnificent work done by the military side. For this purpose, an educa tional campaign was necessary, and the best education was to have an interior air line in this country. If they could make the air lines prosperous, they would bring in the train of the aircraft industry increased trade between the different parts of the Empire. Sir Samuel Instone, in proposing " The Air Ministry," said they had arrived at a milestone in aviation. They had just concluded the first period of the subsidy. He con gratulated the Air Ministry upon their new lease of life in face of the great campaign to annihilate them. Sir Samuel paid a high compliment to the Chief of their Staff, Capt. Barnard, and said he was pleased to say they had recently added Sir A. Whitten-Brown to their staff, which conveyed an assurance that things would go forward. The Air Ministry's wonderful weather reports had been of the greatest importance to the successful flying, free from accidents and trouble. He welcomed the series of articles of General Groves in The Times. He had been able to say what many in high places would have liked to have said, and it had done an immense amount of good. Civil aviation, he thought, would afford an outlet for the young of the coming generation, and therefore it ought to be supported. Major-General Sir F. Sykes claimed that Civil aviation was the basis of the Air Force. Out of the Channel services they must build up air-routes in various directions abroad, Imperially, and at home. Mr. Baldwin Raper, M.P., responded for the House of Commons. Amongst those present were : Sir James Stevenson, Brig.-General P. R. C. Groves, Brig.-General R. K. Bagnail- Wild, Sir H. White-Smith, Lieut.-Col. W. D. Beatty, Colonel Blandy, Sir A. Whitten-Brown, Lieut.-Col. J. Barrett- Lennard, Mr. Theodore Instone, Capt. Alfred Instone, Mr. T. A. Lewis, M.P., Mr. James Paterson, Mr. F. G. L. Bertram, Mr. Arthur Logan, Major S. Greer, Colonel A. Ogilvie, Lieut.- Col. W. A. Bristow, Mr. E. Gamage, Mr. G. E. Howse, Dr. G. C. Simpson, Mr. J. S. Ross, Mr. L. Simon, and Mr. E. Cogni. The Daimler Airway Inauguration AT the Criterion, Mr. E. Manville, M.P., presided, the chief guest being Capt. Guest, Secretary of State for Air. Mr. Manville at the outset referred back to the Air Transport Company's work, with which they had been associated, and the experience then gained against the snags which should help them to create a commercially successful service. First- class organisation stood behind commercial success in civil aviation, and if that idea were carried to its ultimate end it might not be necessary to call upon the Government for the subsidy that was given to approved companies who were unable to make ends meet. Capt. Guest, he said, was some what sceptical whether civil aviation could be made self- paying, but he hoped to be able to prove to him that it was possible. The Postmaster-General, who was present, was more than favourably inclined to sending mails by air, and moreover he was well satisfied .with the results so far. Capt. Guest acknowledging the toast, said the Air Ministry welcomed the arrival of the third candidate in the field of competition for air mail and air passenger services. There was a significant factor in connection with the entry into the field of the Daimler Hire Service. It was the first very definite sign of a great motor company turning its attention to aeronautics, and he hoped it would be the fore-runner of the movement in that direction. This was also the first company to have indicated an expectation of carrying on successful air travel without the aid of the subsidy. He had laid himself open to charges of being optimistic about the commercial success of civil aviation, but he thought he had been a little unfairly judged, because such expressions as he had made use of must be taken with their corollary. Although in England, through want of space, the weather conditions, the excessive comfort and speed of other forms of transport, civil aviation had apparently not become popular, yet as a corollary it was none the less necessary that the British Isles should be the pioneers of a wider form of civil aviation than these islands offered to us. We were merely the heart of a great Empire which had great stretches of country, which were unbridgeable except by air, and he had always supported the cross-Channel services and the subsidies attendant thereto, because it was there, under the most difficult condi tions, that we could establish and develop our ability in civil aviation, and transport it—organisation and all— to other parts of the Empire in order to reach the desirable acme of success which was the Imperial air communications. There were openings already at hand. A greater conception was to have a route straight through Europe to Constantinople, to Baghdad, to Busra,- and to India at Karachi. It was early yet to do more than outline such a possibility, but most of the links in that chain were already covered and undertaken by someone, and it seemed that the time would not be far distant before we got started on that great route. He wished to repudiate the charge that was sometimes expressed to the effect that civil aviation was " snowed under " in the Air Ministry by Service considerations. This would certainly not be so while he was at the Air Ministry, but he 207
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