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Aviation History
1922
1922 - 0382.PDF
ROYAL AERO CLUB'S COMING OF AGE MEMBERS of the Club entertained at the Savoy Hotel a distinguished company at dinner on June 27, to celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the forming of the Royal Aero Club. The Duke of Atholl, President of the Club, presided, and after proposing a vote of condolence, which was accorded to Lady Wilson on the tragic death of her husband, announced that he had authorised the despatch of the following message to Lord Stamfordham, the King's Private Secretary :•— " The Royal Aero Club assembled together to celebrate the -twenty-first anniversary of their existence, send your Majesty loyal and respectful greetings humbly submitted by the Duke of Atholl, President." Later in the evening it was announced that the following reply had been received :— " His Majesty commands me to thank the Royal Aero Club for their loyal message, and in return, while he con gratulates them on the splendid work in the cause of British aviation, he wishes them all success in the future."— Stamfordham. Lord Gorell, Under-Secretary of State for Air, in the unavoidable absence of Capt. F. E. Guest, Secretary of State for Air, proposed the toast of " The Royal Aero Club," and declared that though in some respects the aerial position, both Service and civil, had been passing through times of difficulty, there was no real need for depression. It was not so many months since the Government had declared the Air , Force independent of the other forces of the Crown. The air had gradually become an element which no one could dis regard. In the very short history of aviation the Royal Aero Club had played a conspicuous part, and it was recorded that between 1909 and 1914 the club spent upward of £60,000 for the encouragement of competitions and the development of flying. He wished the club long life and great prosperity. The Duke of Atholl, responding to the toast, said the club, from a very small beginning, had come to be recognised as the headquarters of British flying. He said that advisedly, for to their friends of the Royal Aeronautical Society they left the scientific side. Long before Dr. Coue was heard of they used to say, " Every day and in every way our flying gets better and better." British grit and scientific knowledge had done everything for British aviation, but today there were crass idiots so financially and strategically blind as to think that the salvation of this country lay in the starving of a force which beyond question stood between us and disaster in the initial stages of a war. It was for the people of this country to see that the false economists did not deplete our' safety through wrong ideas of thrift. Flying, which was still in its infancy, could not be kept up unless it was backed by the Government, and the experience of the late war taught us that to be saved we must be prepared. Those who were interested in aviation did not ask for fleets and squadrons of aircraft, but they did ask that encouragement should be given to civil aviation to ensure that the best inventive brains in the industry should not be wasted. No institution had done more to keep this view before the public than the Royal Aero Club, from the days when flights were measured in seconds and occasionally in minutes. Today their chief activity was in promoting competitions, and they were most grateful to the King for the lead he had given them by presenting a cup for their next big competition. Lord Weir afterwards delivered an address on aviation. If they were to believe one section of the Press, he said, British aviation was practically dead. Narrow and unimaginative people were said to have ruined it. It seemed to him that these newspaper critics were no better informed than the lady who could not remember the name of the Derby winner, but was able to say that Donoghue was the name of its caddie. He could recall no subject which had received more real help from the majority of the newspapers of this country than aviation, and even if Press criticisms were uninformed at times, they did good because they stimulated public interest. So far as he could gather, the main line of recent criticism was that we were falling into a dangerously weak position in comparison with France ; that civil aviation, upon which we must largely rely, had declined, and that the British aircraft industry was practically ruined. He held a profound con viction that the country which, in the war, did more effective and greater work in the air than any other country, would continue to hold a position of supremacy in the air, in keep ing with its great position amongst the nations of the world. In regard to France's squadrons, he refused to conjure up visions of menace—he preferred to recall that France owed us £500,000,000. If the interest on that was assessed at £25,000,000, was it not a legitimate reflection that we had in effect paid for those 220 squadrons ? It had to be remem bered, too, that a French squadron cost but a quarter thkt it cost to maintain a British squadron. He was inclined to reflect that if taxation was the price of Admiralty, then indeed we had paid in full. He urged that in regard ,to the Service votes the question of national defence should be considered a single problem, and the distribution of the vote decided by the best results from the economic standpoint. If that were done there would be no fear for the Service side of British aviation. In any calm and dispassionate appraisal of relative effec tiveness for national defence, the air would justify more easily year by year its claim for more and more substantial con sideration. All he would suggest was that its claims be given calm and dispassionate consideration, and that national defence" be the predominant factor rather than the interests of any of the three Services. It was because he thought our • Government was in the fortunate position of being able to have the case for the air separately presented to them to secure proper consideration, that he was one of those who believed -we did the right thing in becoming the first nation, and even today the only nation, to have a separate Air Service. When Great Britain was charged with lack of imagination in regard to the air, that at least should be reckoned in its favour. He was convinced that the services of aviation should be considered entirely apart from the civil side for some time to come. It was not wise for the Royal Air Force to rely in any way on civil air transport as a reserve in times of emer gency ; he could find nothing in the development of civil air transport that could be regarded as offering effective assistance to the fighting services. He had a feeling that the commercial aeroplane would, as it developed into an economic success, become in its design and structure of less and less value as a weapon of war. He hoped that the successful aeroplane of the future would be as useful for bomb-dropping and purely offensive purposes as the " Mauretania " might have been at the Battle of Jutland. The most discouraging experience of private enterprise today was the apathy of the travelling public. According to the newspapers, the community called for more and more aeroplanes, but they were not using the aeroplanes that were in existence. The simple way of helping British air transport was to use the service provided and so help its development. It was to countries like their own that they must look for any development, and they must look to their designers and scientists for a real basic solution of commercial air transport. It was a matter for the technician and engineer, and if we spent our money with that end in view we should be repaid a hundredfold. He regarded the exhibition at Hendon last Saturday as a great performance. It suggested to him new hope for the aircraft industry. The Royal Air Force must not live much longer on the old war machine. There need be no fear for British aviation if there was first given a calm and dispassionate judgment on the effectiveness of the air as an arm of national defence ; next the maintenance by State support of our administrational civil air services, and perhaps an expansion to the Cairo-India route ; further, a practical appreciation of the necessity of supporting technical develop ment and research ; and finally, an active policy of replace ment of the old Service type of machine. M. Flandin (President, Aero Club de France) addressed the company on aviation, and was followed by Vice-Adnural Sir Roger Keyes, who said that the Air Force was an essential protection for these islands, because attacks from the air could not be met by any other Service. As a member of the Board of Admiralty, he said that body looked to an efficient air service in maintaining sea supremacy. An inferior fleet equipped with an efficient air service would be a serious menace to a superior fleet lacking such equipment. The power of the Navy to maintain the sea supermacy of the Empire was vitally dependent upon the efficiency of its air units. The Empire would fail to exist when its sea power failed. Lieut.-Gen. Sir Travers E. Clarke said the Army fully appreciated the value of the airmen and their craft. He was told that every man in the American army was to be capable of flying. He left it to the judgment of each individual to decide when that really came about,, as to which branch of the American forces those men would belong. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh M. Trenchard also replied. Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, M.O., proposed " The Chairman," to which the Duke of Atholl briefly replied. Among those present were :—The Earl of Caledon ; Mr. 382
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