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Aviation History
1930
UNTITLED0 - 0078.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 3, 1930 greater distances could be assuaged by the presence of aroyal counsellor in the Household. Today, the reduction of time and distance by wireless andthe long-distance telephone, communication by air and the fast steamship, the imminence of television," all of theseare making the world smaller and are making it more difficult for evil counsels to prevail undetected in international affairs ;they should be making the world a better place to live in. The industry of a nation, its commerce, these are the onlysure foundations of its prosperity. A large navy, a huge army, and an imposing air force do not deceive the eye ;these three, or any one of them, may be but national sleight- of-hand juggled at the expense of a nation's commercial purse.Since most of the principal nations of the world are now democratic republics, the old way of marital diplomacy mustgive place to the new way of science, in which commercial air transport is destined to play a very large part. Thus,even in the short history of the commercial air transportation which has grown up in the past ten years no study, howeverbrief, could be complete without some contemplation of the part which geographical and political factors have played inthe production of the existing air lines of today. Commercial Air Transport in Europe In Europe there are 33 air traffic companies. These aremade up as follows : France 6, Italy 6, Switzerland 3, Great Britain 2, Germany 2, Czechoslovakia 2, Germano-Russia 1,Belgium 1, Holland 1, Russia 1, Sweden 1, Denmark 1, Finland 1, Poland 1, Austria 1, Hungary 1, Yugo-Slavia 1,Spain 1. Needless to say, there are very great differences in the sizes of some of these companies and in the air opera-tions in which they engage. In almost all the countries with the small numbers of companies the air traffic activitiesof the countries concerned are run by monopoly companies which are responsible for at least the major commercial airoperations of the country. In some countries, notably Czechoslovakia and Switzerland, one company is engagedin the operation of international routes while the other devotes its energies to the furtherance of purely national air connec-tions ; this policy is very sound because the specialised needs of each company is different, and the competition whichthe international company has to meet as well as the regu- lations affecting the flight of its aeroplanes are not in thesame category as those under which the national company operates ; furthermore, the barter with the companies of anyforeign nation for reciprocal flying rights can only take place with the internationally operating company and the purelynational flying rights are thereby preserved commercially, irrespective of any international legislation which mightexist or be set up. The civil aviation policy existing in France and Italy is not that of other countries ; in Franceand Italy individual companies specialise on certain air lines or territories ; over-lapping competition is avoided. Thereis something in this arrangement which is akin to the modus operandi of the British Air Ministry with the British aircraftconstructing industry, whereby orders are placed with a view to insuring the continuance of a sufficient number ofaircraft constructing organisations as a national asset, a policy which might not always be completely justified onpurely commercial grounds. Itrwill be very interesting to watch the future growth of French and Italian civil aviationcompared with that of countries whose similar activities are entrusted to a single large monopoly company. British air lines connect to the main centres of the nearercountries—Paris in France, Brussels in Belgium, Cologne in Germany, Basle and Zurich in Switzerland These linesare terminal feeders to the main continental air system. They are not F.uropean trunk routes like some of those of France,Germany, Holland and Russia, and for the principal cause of this difference we have only to look at our geographicalsituation in Europe, which is unfavourable for the operation of air lines. For trunk route there is the imperially dictatedair line running from one of the above cities either via Italy or via central Europe to Greece and on out of Euiope viaEgypt, Palestine, Iraq and Persia to India. Steps have already been taken to throw a branch trunk line from this routesouthward to the Cape from Egypt. Air connection from India on to Australia is the ultimate aim of the main line.Feeder connections will link the trunk route to cities on either side of it. Some such connections already exist,for example, the Junkers Persian line connections at Bagdad and Bushire which, in turn, connect with the Russian lineflying north to Moscow from Teheran and Baku ; others are projected, such as the new connection to be run betweenKarachi and Bombay. By the time this article appears in print the eastern terminal will be Delhi, the capital of India,and not just Karachi, its air port of entry. It is unfortunate that this air line, running vertebrate throughout the lengthof the British Empire to the east, with feeder lines like nerve cords which will interservice the remoter parts lying off thedirect track, does not include Canada. To embrace Canada in any British Kmpire air service scheme is a problem infi-nitely more difficult to solve than that of all the other parts of Empire, the more so because Canada borders her frontiersouthwards where she does. It is easy to interpret the geo- graphical and political necessities which have determinedthe British air lines of today. In addition to the outline given above, there is also an independent organisationinterconnecting Southampton and the Channel Islands, which I have counted when enumerating two air transport companiesto Great Britain. When we turn to France we find her numerous companiesspecialising in certain territories. Two companies run com- petitive lines against British, Dutch and German companies ;two more run services which at present are free from com- petition ; two more run services which are mainly., but notentirely, centred in French territory. French air lines reach out to Sweden, Poland, Constantinople, Tunisia, Morocco ;French aeroplanes fly to London, Amsterdam and Berlin. In her own territory she inter-connects Paris with Strasbourg,Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Biarritz and other places. Her Constantinople line will eventually reach Bagdad via FrenchSyria. Her line to Morocco carries passengers as far as Casablanca and then flies southwards to Senegal with mailswhich are shipped at Saint Louis for South America, while the aeroplane passes still further south to its present terminalin Africa. Dakar. The train leaves Paris on Saturday night, connects with the aeroplane at Toulouse on Sunday morningwhich, flying via Spain, reaches Saint Louis and Dakar on Monday evening ; the steamship leaves Saint Louis on Mondayevening and reaches Natal in Brazil on Saturday ; Rio de Janeiro the capital of Brazil is reached from Natal by aero-plane on Sunday evening, and Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentine, on Monday evening nine days after leavingParis. From Buenos Ayres connections run to Asuncion in Paraguay and Santiago in Chili. A further projectedroute branch is from Natal to Cayenne in. French Guiana. The total flying mileage of the route from Paris to Buenos Ayresalone is very little short of 7,000 miles. This French air mail route is in its conception perhaps the most striking airmail route in the world today. Internal mail connections in France, and an air service in French Indo-China completethis extremely brief survey of the activities of French com- mercial aircraft. It is of no small importance that apartfrom the French air competition in the linking up of the countries which lie about France the main effort of hercommercial air transportation is undoubtedly directed towards the inter-connection by air of the French colonies and theLatin races throughout the world, with the exception of Italy. German aviation is all commercial transportation. Theconditions imposed upon her by the war and its aftermath have decided this without option. It is true that all Germandesign is not free from the desire to produce types which coul4 be converted to military purposes, but this articletreats of operational aviation, not constructional. Next to the large number of her air routes and the high mileage flownbv her air lines, the principal feature of German commercial aviation lies in its centralisation. Around Leipzig as a roughcentre, her air lines lie thick upon the map. As one would expect, they take Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark,and the nearer Baltic cities in their web. Every little while a line reaches farther out to a more distant terminal point—Budapest, Marseilles and Barcelona (German trade with Spain was always good), Paris, London, Oslo, Stockholm,and via the Russo-Gennan line to the Eastern Baltic States, Leningrad, Smolensk, and Moscow. The urge behind thepost-war development of German commercial aviation will cause her to turn her eyes to the inauguration of long-distanceroutes. With her present lack of colonies, German trade enlargement must turn to methods of peaceful penetrationby the establishment of German commercial colonies in foreign cities, and by the planning of air mail routes betweenGermany and the cities where her trade is most prosperous ; it is a condition consequential upon the stripping from herof her colonies and the hedging in of her national boundaries ; it is a development which is political and commercial, bredin the same forcing-house as that which brought her present territorially-more-restricted commercial aviation to itspresent flourishing condition. It is significant that German commercial air transport is financed by the large banksand shipping companies of the nation, and that its object is trade development first and foremost. The remainder of the air lines of Europe are mostly local.They serve to connect the large cities of each of the European 78
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