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Aviation History
1930
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FLIGHT, OCTOBER 24, 1930 THE R 101 ENQUIRY Constitution of Court IT was announced at 10, Downing Street, on Wednesdayevening last, that the public enquiry into the cause ofthe loss of R 101 will be conducted by a Court estab- lished under the Air Navigation Act (Investigation of Accidents), with full powers to compel the presence of witnesses and the production of evidence. The Court will consist of one person, but two Assessors will sit with the Court. The following gentlemen have been asked to give their services and have accepted :— The Court : Sir John Simon. Assessors : Lieut.-Colonel Moore Brabazon ; Prof. C. E. Inglis. The Assessors have been chosen as having some knowledge Of the subject, and as being able to put specific questions to witnesses. They will be at liberty either to sign the Court's report or to make their own report. Lieut.-Colonel Moore Brabazon is well known to all readersof FLIGHT. Prof. Inglis is Professor of Mechanism andApplied Mechanics at Cambridge University. The Court will announce who will be Registrar, and whenand where the Court will sit. It is understood that the first sitting will be held early next week. This is the third Court of the kind to be instituted underthe Air Navigation Act. A Court has been preferred to an Enquiry, because the latter would not have power to summonwitnesses and call for evidence. The technical enquiry already held on the scene of the accident will presumablypresent its conclusions as evidence before Sir John Simon This Court will confine its attention to trying to discoverwhy R 101 came to grief. It will present its report to the Government, with whom it rests to decide upon the futureairship policy. CROYDON WEEKLY NOTES IN Europe's most primitive country, Andorra, the sturdyhillsmen have but one way of measuring distance. Milesor kilometres mean nothing to them, but the very dullest knows how many hours it takes to get from Las Escaldas to Solden, which is surely all that matters. Yet we, in our intelligent way, still think of Australia as being some ten or eleven thousand miles distant. Kingsford-Smith by his brilliant flight has shown that it need only be ten days away. And he has proved it single-handed, in his little Avian, with the most sketchy of ground organisation. Eventually we shall have an air mail service in that direction with depots and sub-depots, air ports and emergency landing grounds along the whole route. And when that service is organised may those who run it read in their history books of Kingsford-Smith's solo effort and learn thereby what can be done. Another brilliant and equally lone flight very recently, has shown South Africa to be but eight days distant. I doubt that we shall be disappointed if we expect our letters to take no longer when the Cape-Cairo service opens. Mr. J. J. Flynn had an extraordinary experience last Saturday, when returning from Paris after dark. Not Gnly did his wireless peter out but his dashboard lights failed as he ran into thick cloud at fifteen hundred feet. With the responsibility of his six passengers' lives on him and his petrol supply running short, he had reason to be scared. But Shades of Martlesham ! that was nothing. Of course, " Paddy " pulled it off and the Control' Tower breathed again. It would appear then that not only must our pilots be trained to fly by their instruments but with even those helps blanked out. That is " blind " flying with a vengeance. Croydon was delighted to see Jack Matthews back on Saturday morning. As we sat round him in the Aerodrome Hotel, it seemed like a page from one of Conrad's novels come to life. He is surely one of the luckiest men alive to have pulled through those terrible experiences in the jungle where he was lost with Hook on their ill-fated attempt to fly to Australia. Every element was against them, torrential rain, flooded rivers turned to raging torrents, bamboo thickets so closely planted as to be quite impassable, and, lastly, their own failing strength unsupported by any food. It is not generally known that at the beginning of their flight they took a straight course from Marseilles to Catania over six hundred miles of open water and that their next stage was a further four hundred and fifty miles of sea to Bengazi. Yes, we were certainly glad to see Jack Matthews back, and we hope that he will soon find the work he is looking for. The 547 passengers who passed through Croydon last week included His Excellency M. de Fleurieu, the French Ambassa- dor, who returned to London by Air Union on Thursday, On the following day, the Imperial Airway " Silver Wing " machine, G-EBOZ, put down at Beauvais to pick up the remaining survivors of the R 101 disaster. It was a pathetic sight to see them arrive at Croydon still in bandages. After examination by a R.A.F. doctor an ambulance took them away. There have been no real departures by air to Australia this week but large packing cases are leaving the Desoutter factory at Croydon for that destination. Apparently these contain Desoutter Mark II machines choosing a more con- ventional method of approach. A new and interesting association called the " Comrades of the Royal Air Force " has recently been formed, with the object of bringing together past and present officers and men of the R.A.F., R.F.C., and R.N.A.S. Since Air Commo- dore Samson is connected with it, it is likely to be a " live " affair, and a branch at Croydon aerodrome would be one of the livest. In order to get this moving, it is proposed to form a strong committee. Those interested would be put wise to the big idea if they approached Capt. " Bill " Lawford. It is certainly time that something of this kind was done and since most people here would be eligible it seems that a very big branch could be formed. Personal Flying Services, Ltd., the new air transport company, which was so recently started at Croydon, has got quickly to work. On Saturday, the 18th, Maj. Clark their chief pilot, departed for Abyssinia in the firm's Junkers. It is understood that the job is a newspaper one in connection with King Ras-Tafari's coronation. Personal Flying Services are also acting as European agents for the Sikorsky amphibian, and the first of these interesting machines to be imported from America arrived here last Friday. It is a single-engmed monoplane with an underslung hull. The accommodation is for four passengers, pilot and mechanic. The tail unit is mounted at the end of booms which extend back from the hull and main plane. Like the Loening amphibian, its Ameri- can rival, there is nothing conventional about the design. Before passing an opinion on it, we would like to watcli i s behaviour in a sea and compare it with such machines as Saunders-Roe are now building in England. In addition to the 547 passengers mentioned above, t-T0Ya'r air port has also handled 47 tons of freight during tne week. , T \i i Loss of R 101 THE municipality of Allonne has presented the piece of ground on which R 101 crashed to the British nation in perpetuity. The Cabinet of France has authorised Sir Laurent Eynac to apply for parliamentary sanction to erect a memorial on the site of the disaster. Every Briton must be deeply touched by these repeated and extraordinarily graceful acts of sympathy by the French. The Sheffield firm of Thomas W. Ward, Ltd., has been given a contract to remove the wreckage. It will all be converted to scrap, and none is to be kept as souvenirs. Sir Maurice Lippens, G.C.V.O., Belgian Minister of Communications, has ™"tt^ to the Master of Sempill expressing the sympathy of Kb aviation over the loss of R 101. In the course of his ^s\s the Minister wrote :—" The whole Belgian nation ' ^^ and appreciates the happy relations which existed Lord Thomson ... and the Aviation PePart™, tiiere is Ministry of Transport and Communications. Also _ ^ hardly a Belgian pilot who does not grieve deeply cU ;retted of Sir Sefton Brancker ... His untimely oeatfi is < * by all who knew him, but by none more nected with Belgian aviation." than those con- 1170
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