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Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0648.PDF
OCTOBER 8, 1925 services the percentage of flights made by British aircraft to the total made by all nations operating on the Cross-Channel lines has decreased from 58 per cent, to 57 per cent., and the percentage of passengers carried is much more unfavourable, being now only 58 per cent, of the total as compared with 79 per cent, during the year ending March 31, 1924. From a broader international point of view, Table C, which deals with the value of goods imported into the United Kingdom by aircraft and exported from the United Kingdom by aircraft, is more encouraging in so far as in nearly every case very considerable increases are recorded. As in Table A it is pointed out that Imperial Airways, Ltd., contributed 100 per cent, of the goods traffic, it may be assumed, of course (although data is not given) that a considerable proportion of the increase in the value of the goods carried by air, has been due to goods carried in British machines, and this fact, taken in conjunction with the obvious tendency towards greater use of air transport for the carriage of goods, strengthens the belief we have long had that goods carrying, if properly organised, may offer a considerable field for exploitation, and it would seem that the time has come when machines specially designed for the carriage of goods should be put into service. Fortu- nately, those responsible for the policy of civil aviation appear to realise this, as it is stated that machines have been, or are about to be, ordered in which a high pay load per horse-power is being aimed at, but the cruising speed of which need not be anything like as high as that of machines used for passenger and mail transport. It is now some two years ago that FLIGHT suggested that the time had come for producing specialised types of commercial aircraft. Carrying a mixture of mails, passengers and goods in one machine cannot possibly be the best arrangement, and hitherto we have been far too prone to be content with this heterogeneous arrangement of our loads, but if civil aviation is to become a real success there can, we think, be no doubt that machines must be specially designed for the purpose for which they are intended. Thus at the upper end of the scale we shall possibly have a very fast air-mail 'plane whose pay load, although, of course, it should be as high as possible, can be reduced in order to get performance ; and owing to the compact nature of mails, a cargo of a given weight could, of course, be carried in a very much smaller space than the equivalent weight made up by passengers. This would logically seem to mean that air-mail machines could be designed with very considerable aerodynamic efficiency, and thus have a high performance, which is necessary if the carriage of mails by air is to offer any real saving in time. In his paper Sir Sefton Brancker refers to the mail 'plane, and to the fact that it will in all proba- bility have a considerably higher cruising speed than the passenger-carriers. The next type of machine will be the passenger aeroplane, and in this safety and comfort will neces- sarily be the first considerations. There seems to be some fascination or other in the figure 100 m.p.h., E3 H Coste Back in Paris M. COSTE, who met with an accident in the Black Forest when flying from France to India—when his fellow pilot, Thiery, was killed—and who was detained by the Germans for flying over German territory without permission, returned and this is the figure which the Director of Civil Aviation considers the minimum for a passenger machine to be used for European air routes. To us it seems that this figure is somewhat high, and we cannot help thinking that it has been arrived at as a result of six years of experience over short cross- Channel routes only. If and when we are going to extend the preseltt services and to make use of night flying, we believe the figure could be considerably reduced without sacrificing the value of the service, and if that is so, a considerable increase in paying load per horse-power should be attainable. Lastly, we come to the aircraft goods-carrier, and this, as already pointed out, need not be a fast machine, but it must carry a considerable load per horse-power. It is now several years ago that Mr. H. P. Folland, of the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company, designed a goods-carrier in which the rear portion of the fuselage was hinged and when swung outwards exposed the total cross-sectional area of the fuselage for the loading and unloading of goods. Hitherto the idea has not been taken up, but it is obvious that it would be a very great advantage to be able to load bulky goods in this fashion, and the time has now certainly come when some such type should be given more serious consideration. If the statistics published in the Annual Report on Civil Aviation are disappointing, the paper compiled by Maj.-Gen. Sir Sefton Brancker and read before the Royal Aeronautical Society can be said to help not incon- siderably in giving that hope for the future for which there seems to be no basis in the annual Report of the Director of Civil Aviation. In his paper the Director of Civil Aviation made no attempt to minimise our difficulties, and this, we think, is one of the reasons why. the paper is of more than ordinary value. Sir Sefton frankly and openly admits the existence of difficulties, but, at the same time he shows how, even in the light of present knowledge, and without drawing too much upon possible future developments, there is good cause to believe that both as regards safety and reliability, as well as from the point of view of economy, considerably better results are in sight. It seems to be mainly a question of incorporating in all future machines such features as have separately proved to assist towards greater reliability and safety. From the list of new aircraft which have been or are about to be ordered, it is evident that the Director of Civil Aviation is fully determined that in the future practical use shall be made of all such various aids to safety and economy, and we therefore look forward with considerably more confidence in the future than is justified merely by past results. There is, we think, an indication that we are at last about to tackle real commercial aviation seriously, although it is scarcely to be expected that by the time the next annual Report of the Directorate of Civil Aviation is published there will be vast improvement to show. We do believe, however, that British civil aviation is just about to turn the corner, and that from now onwards there will be progress to record, possibly slow at first but, we hope and believe, none the less sure. 13 H to Paris on October 2. The fine of 5,000 marks imposed upon him by Germans has been paid, 3,500 marks having been subscribed by the readers of the Journal d'Alsace et dc Lorraine, and the remainder of the fine being given by the firms interested in the flight. 648
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