FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0266.PDF
the same time, with one of the most attractive features of air racing : good cornering. So that altogether the problems of air race meetings are extremely difficult indeed. i But even if the problems can be solved and most of 'the risks avoided, the question must be asked : Is iAir racing, at least for large numbers of low powered machines, really good propaganda ? Personally we have our doubts. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the propaganda is not quite of the right kind. Air racing means running engines " all out " with consequent hard wear and the possibility of forced landings. While excellent for the purpose of discover- ing weaknesses, there is a risk that an impression of unreliability may be created. Also, air racing is regarded as something of a stunt. Again not quite the impression one would like to create. A whole day's racing, or possibly even several days of racing, becomes monotonous and, in the end, frankly boring, as we found out at Bournemouth last year. Unless the racing is interspersed with other items, interest is difficult to maintain. At Lympne and Hadleigh, on the other hand, there was very little racing. In fact, there was practically speaking none. But there was a tremen- dous amount of "joy riding." Hundreds of people were taken up ; many of them probably for the first time in their lives. And almost without exception they stepped from the machines full of enthusiasm for flying. Those who did not go up did at any rate watch the regular ascent and descent of the machines, and must have been impressed by the regularity and the safety with which the proceedings went on. Thus they will go home with a feeling that flying, so far from being a stunt reserved merely for the daring few, is a very ordinary and safe sort of business. And once we can get that feeling really firmly established, we shall have gone a long way towards making the nation " air minded." Another feature which made the Lympne and Had- leigh meetings so attractive was the spirit of " demo- cracy " which was evident everywhere. Well-known <3> <$> Air Mails in 1927 A REVIEW of British air mail services in 1927 shows that both letter and parcel traffic were much heavier during the year. Letter mails despatched from this country totalled 27,000 lb., as compared with 17,000 lb. in 1926, and air parcels 74,000 1b. as compared with 55,000 lb. in 1926. Although no important new routes were opened to Europe, 10,000 lb. of letter mails, an increase of 24 per cent, over 1926, were carried to European destinations during 1927. Germany received the greatest volume ; the traffic to France, though considerable, was practically stationary, but greatly increased use was made of the air service to Marseilles on Friday morn- ings, affording a late connection with the mails for India and the Par East, which leave London on Thursday evenings. The mails to Belgium and Holland showed an increase, and to Switzerland and Scandinavia nearly doubled. The air routes from Paris and Zurich to Constantinople attracted a much greater volume of traffic, though the total was com- paratively small. The only decrease was in traffic to Russia. During the year the air mail fee payable on correspondence for Germany and Switzerland was reduced from 3d. to 2d. an ounce. The longer air routes naturally offer the greatest advantage over the ordinary services ; for instance, the service from Cairo to Baghdad and Basra, maintained by Imperial Airways under contract with the British Government, enables a letter to reach Baghdad 16 days and Basra 13 days earlier than it would in ordinary course of post. Since early in the year this service has plied weekly instead of fortnightly and the total traffic carried by it during the year was about 13,500 lb., double that of 1926, and greater'than that to all European destinations.together! In the parcel services, the traffic to Paris was stationary, but that to Holland increased slightly. APRIL 12, 1928 _.. test pilots, a world-famous racing pilot, and at least one famous aircraft designer who is also an excellent pilot, took their share of the " joy-riding " work, and " did their bit " side by side with private owners holding " B " licences. Firms and private owners had placed the machines at the free disposal of the clubs concerned, and everyone worked with a will towards one common aim : propaganda. We very much doubt whether, since the early days of aviation, anything quite like this has ever occurred in this country. And the general result is, we feel sure, excellent, and will have a lasting effect. • • • H . Everyone will sympathise most sin-Luck cerely with the mishap which befell Lady Bailey while she was alighting at Tabora in East Africa on her way from London to the Cape in a de Havilland " Moth," and which, apparently, resulted in the machine being severely damaged, although fortunately Lady Bailey herself escaped injury. Quiet, unassuming, and modest almost to a fault, Lady Bailey is not only a very good pilot, but a very plucky woman. When, quite early in her career as a pilot, she was struck on the head by a propeller and almost scalped, she was out and about in a very short time, and a little while later actually took part in the air racing at Bournemouth, with her head swathed in bandages. As holder of the light 'plane altitude record (accompanied by Mrs. Geoffrey de Havilland), Lady Bailey has experienced the effects of height and cold, and now on her tour to the Cape she has faced discomforts, to say the least, which have ranged from snowstorms at the start to sand- storms and heat during portions of her journey through Africa. She deserved to win through if ever anyone did, and it is sincerely to be hoped that another machine will be placed at her disposal so that she may complete a journey so pluckily begun. Not only members of the Suffolk club, of which she is President, but all readers of FLIGHT, will, we are sure, join us in the expression of that hope. $ The traffic to Switzerland was trebled, and that to Germany nearly doubled. The parcel service with Belgium was re- opened during the year, and another service was introduced in Colombia (South America). The latter gives a substantial acceleration over the ordinary route. First English Aeronaut ONE hundred years ago, on March 27, James Sadler, the first English aeronaut, died at Oxford. He began experi- menting with small balloons filled with hydrogen in 1782 and he made his first ascent in 1784, the flight lasting half- an-hour. The Royal Aeronautical Society has decided to restore his defaced tombstone in the Churchyard of St. Peter in the East, and erect a stone tablet in the Church to per- petuate his.memory as the first English aeronaut. Indian M.P.s in Flight MOST of the members of the party of the Legislative Assembly visiting the North-West Indian Frontier last week made flights over Peshawar in a Bristol Fighter. Easter Air Traffic IMPERIAL Airways state that this Easter they had the biggest traffic rush in the history of commercial aviation. Every available air liner of their fleet was in full use, one making three flights between London and Paris on April 5. Busk Studentship in Aeronautics THE trustees of the studentship established in memory of Edward Teshmaker Busk, who lost his life flying an experi- mental aeroplane in 1914, announce they are prepared to receive applications for the studentship. Particulars and the necessary forms can be obtained from Prof. B. Melvill Jones, Engineering Laboratory, Cambridge. - — 238
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
