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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0756.PDF
the daily press will give its readers concerning the part played in this year's manoeuvres by the A.A.F. squadrons, nor how much material the Air Ministry will release, but it seems to us that if, for instance, the public in general were made aware of the fact that Nos. 600 and 601 Squadrons are the City of London and County of London squadrons, whose aerodrome is at Hendon, and which are commanded by Sqdn.-Ldr. the Rt. Hon. Frederick E. Guest and Sqdn.-Ldr. Lord Edward Grosvenor, respectively, Londoners would be much more keenly interested in knowing how these squadrons acquit themselves in the manoeuvres, how many of their objectives they reach, what " damage " they are judged to have done, and so forth. Thus John Citizen, and Jane his wife for that matter, instead of regarding these manoeuvres as merely a rather interesting spectacle, would have a certain amour proprc interest in the proceed- ings. It should be realised that taking part in such exercises is not entirely devoid of danger, and the fact that the Auxiliary squadrons are taking part this year is an indication that their training has reached a stage where they are fit and capable of doing so effectively- That, in itself, is cause for satisfaction, but it is, we think, necessary to stress the point and to make it quite clear to the general public that these non-regular squadrons are not only carrying out their training by themselves, but are now proving themselves worthy of working with the regular Royal Air Force. Another feature of the first day's operations was that the fighter squadrons were successful in inter- cepting the bombing squadrons in a large proportion of instances—eight out of ten to be exact. This refers, however, to daylight " raids." The inter- ception of night raiders is, of course, vastly more difficult : but as far as can be seen at the moment, even in this branch a good deal of progress has been made since last year. Doubtless this is largely due to improvements in what may be termed the ground organisation, such as anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, wireless and other communications, listening posts, etc. And after all, it is to a large extent the object of <s> <$> Liverpool-Belfast Air Service A REGULAR flying-boat service between Belfast andLiverpool is now considered a more hopeful possibility than was the case eight years ago. Harbour authorities at Belfastand the Finance Minister of Northern Ireland have agreed to co-operate, whilst there have been communications withthe Air Ministry outlining the scheme, and indicating what the two cities are prepared to do. There is much satisfactionin Belfast at the prospects of a 90-minute air service to the Mersey. It is suggested that a demonstration service shouldbe tested for the Liverpool Civic Week in October. Commercial Aviation in Sweden THE Swedish Aerotransport Company reports recordtraffic this summer. It can now look back on a record of more than four years of regular commercial flying withouta single accident involving loss of life or injury to a passenger. The time-table of the company shows that Sweden is nowconnected with practically every important centre in Europe as there are now 25 regular flying routes. The principalSwedish daily service is the Malmoe-Amsterdam-Paris- London route, and on that line the machines have carried alull complement of passengers throughout the season. The planes are being increasingly used for the transport of freight,and each machine has regularlv carried 600 to 800 kilos of merchandise to Malmoe. Goods carried have been of themost varied character ; recently a consignment of 1,100 live chickens were brought from Hamburg and were found to bein excellent condition on arrival. AUGUST 16, 1928 the manoeuvres to discover how to make the best use of such aids to anti-aircraft defence. As Major Robertson points out, the exercises are not intended to test the defences of London, which are known to be as yet in a very incomplete state. Rather should one regard them as tests of the various units and their working together. The old controversial question as to whether our single-seater fighters are capable of overtaking and giving battle to some of our fastest bombers still appears to remain unsolved. The bombers are flying light, and it is quite conceivable that at a compara- tively low altitude they are able, by diving slightly, to get away from the fighters. At greater heights presumably the bombers would lose performance more rapidly and matters thus be evened up. The flight recently accomplished by Flying Officer P. Murdoch of the South African Air Force must rank among the very finest of recent years. True, it does not com- pare, in distance covered in the time, with Hinkler's famous flight to Australia on a similar machine, but then that flight is now beginning to emerge as having been something quite exceptional and calling lor almost superhuman efforts on the part of the pilot. Murdoch's flight, on the other hand, has been made with the object of proving that an air service to South Africa can be operated all the year around. Leaving London in his Avro " Cirrus-Avian " on July 29, he arrived in Capetown on August 12, having covered the distance of something over 8,000 miles in about 15 days, which gives an average daily mileage of about 550 miles, which is a very excellent figure considering the unfavourable conditions that obtained during a large proportion of the journey. Murdoch has already left Capetown on the return journey, and if all goes well he should be back in England by the end of next week. All will join us in congratulating him on what he has already accomplished, and in wishing him every good fortune during the return flight. Autogiro on TourTHE programme of the Cierva Autogiro C.8L.2 (Siddeley 180 h.p. Lynx) tour this week includes a visit to Leeds,Newcastle and Renfrew. The pilot is Mr. A. C. H. A. Rawson, and the machine is the same which competed in the King'sCup race. When the tour ends it is possible that a visit to the Continent will follow. Gipsy-Moth to Compete at Orly Meeting THE de Havilland Aircraft Co., Ltd., will be representedat the French International Light 'Plane Meeting at Orly, France, September 10-21, by a Gipsy-Moth, to be flownby Capt. H. Broad. The Silver Way DURING the past thirty days, 19^ tons of silver, valuedat /70.000, have arrived at Croydon Aerodrome from Paris in Imperial Airways machines. It is understood that duringthe next few weeks between 50 and 60 tons of silver will be flown from Paris to London. The pilots of these machinesare armed with revolvers, Costes' Atlantic Flight CAPT. D. COSTES, the French airman, who flew the South Atlantic with Lieut, le Brix, is about to attempt an Atlantic flight from Paris, accompanied by M. Bellonte. Air Minister's Flight SIR SAMUEL HO ARE. Minister of Air, accompanied bythe Bishop of Chester, flew from London to Brussels on August 8 in an Imperial Airways liner. The 200-milesflight took just over 2 hours. 700
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