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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0961.PDF
OCTOBER 11, 1928 HT PRIVA FLYING A Section of FLIGHT in the Interests of the Private Owner, Owner-Pilot, and Club Member OBJECT OF FLIGHT By IVOR McCLURE [Our contributor, Mr. 1. McClure, again adopts his original style of narrating a recent private air tour through Europe in his DM. " Moth " (Cirrus Mk. //).—ED. I MATERIAL 'progress being far ahead of mental progress, it is still necessary to get permission to fly to certain European countries. Their Governments will let you walk there, if your own feet will or you may be dragged there in a steel box full of cinders if you have a railway ticket. It is only when you forsake anachronism, discomfort and extreme danger and wish to fly in your own aeroplane that you are regarded as being faintly awesome and requiring control. There is now no longer any just cause for complaint about this for all the old bothersome formalities can be done for you : that is to say, you can fill up one long form instead of a multitude of short ones. But you still have to say what is the " Object of Flight " ; ignoring all possible deviations from the truth you say " Pleasure." You are not on oatli and that is what it should be. Indeed, you may be lucky. There are still a few things to rectify before that word " Pleasure " can be written without a grim, cynical smile. Brains of immense power, research laboratories, vast factories are working to increase the speed of aeroplanes by some split seconds ; at the very first aerodrome you land for petrol you lose whole hours. The petrol is never near the hangars where it might possibly be required. Two square little men march briskly off into the landscape and they bring the liquid back in cans and cannisters, jugs, pots, bowls and billikens ; it is even money on a cup or a cistern. There is the clambering all over the machine to fill up. On what kind of car do you have to stand balanced on the radiator cap to fill up with petrol ? We are not quite out of the barbaric age of aviation. The tortures of payment are sadistic in their devising, falling as they do on victims chafed raw with small delays. At Hamburg, where the new aerodrome buildings will make Wembley Stadium look like a week-end cottage, three-six- teenths of the housing fee has to be paid to one authority, one- thirtysecond of the landing fee to another, seven-tenths of the petrol to a third and Hangar B, where the machine is, stands three-quarters of a mile from Hangar A where the offices are. There is a very nice man at Bremen who has a sense of humour. Having kept us waiting 20 minutes getting small change^for 1 mark (and I had given him a 50 mark note so I couldn't afford to waive the change for that) he saw us off to Hamburg for the night and then wirelessed Copenhagen to expect us. At Copenhagen the aerodrome officials, their stenographers and clerks, the customs and the passport men and petrol- pump-Bill sat up all night playing Nap by the light of the flood lights waiting for us to arrive to pay their expenses and overtime. Which we did, next day. It would be discourteous and unjust not to mention Kovno. All our fuel arrangements went astray there, which is easily explained by one glimpse of Kovno. It was, however, the only aerodrome where Vacuum Oil supplies were not awaiting us, a fine achievement that saved us much worry and further delay. By the log book, I find we re-fuelled in 26 minutes with the aid of the military, who courteously refused pay- ment. I remember receiving a similar act of speedy courtesy from the Polish Air Force in Krakow. Trying to secure a quick fill-up at Tempelhofen forms an enlightening compari- son ; it is a half-crown taxi fare from the hangar to the aerodrome office and the man you pay for petrol roosts in the roof. All these drawbacks, however, are temporary. The advent of a little more traffic and man's natural irritability and bad temper will put things right. Even now it is almost impos- sible to land at a large foreign aerodrome without hearing of a D.H. " Moth " that has just gone by. For the time being, one must restrict the length of one's daily journey. One day we shall have a machine with standard tanks for six hours' petrol. As we sat growling at uneatable food in the barrack- Map tracing all the European private air tours carried out by Mr. I. McClure up to date. He learned to fly with the London Aeroplane Club and has owned two Cirrus- Moths. The first he registered on June 8, 1927, shortly after qualifying as a pilot 891
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