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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0170.PDF
FLIGHT, FEBRUARY 20, 1931 5 1b. per h.p. instead of 3-1, the revenue of the hypotheticalair line would increase from 50 to about 75. Already the budget was about balancing, and they had not yet consideredthe effect of increasing the volume of flying operations. As aircraft and engines were developed, so less time would bespent on the ground for maintenance and overhaul, and therefore more time would be available for flying. This,together with the development of night flying, would permit a greater number of miles per year to be flown Economicsuccess depended very largely upon keeping the units in operation. An aircraft must fly up to 200,000 miles a yearin the future to achieve success. To obtain this increased performance by speed alone in-creased the relative cost, and to attempt to get it by drawing upon the resources of the human element would weaken thefundamental desire for safety. To obtain this increased performance by so simplifying designs that less work wasnecessary and less time spent on the ground meant real economy and advancement. If the mileage flown wereincreased by half and sufficient traffic was available to give remunerative loads for the extra miles, the loss on the unsub-sidised operations would be turned into a profit. If one doubled the original mileage the profits increased, because airtransport was not inherently uneconomic. It already earned a gross profit on its prime cost of operation, and the needwas for more and more flights, so that accumulation of gross profits, coupled with such economies as were possible, wouldfirst equal and then pass the total of the overhead expenses. This was a problem which was faced to-day by industriesmany years older than air transport. There was still a great deal to be done in fostering thespirit of air-mindedness and in telling the men and women of to-day what it really meant to our Empire to have Indiaa week instead of two weeks away, South Africa only eleven days, Egypt as near as a long week-end, and later Australiaa week and a half away instead of nearly a month. The Transition Period and Subsidies The next part of Sir Eric Geddes' paper dealt with thetransition period until commercial aviation could exist as a profitable industry. If it were not for the subsidies paidto operating companies throughout the world, the rate of progress would suffer a severe deceleration. Subsidies werepaid to accelerate progress, to bring to pass in ten years or so what might otherwise take 100 years or more to develop.Subsidies, Sir Eric said, are a medium through which we can buy the future. The various countries had different forms of subsidy. InFrance liberal subsidies were paid and the object of thereby creating potential military reserves was openly admitted.There was no military air force in Germany, and all the wealth of aeronautical talent and large sums of money were devotedto the development of commercial aviation. Great Britain had aimed at placing air transport on a self-supporting basisat the earliest time possible, assisting it with the minimum subsidy necessary to tide it over the early years. In America,no direct subsidies were paid, but by way of indirect subsidy the American Government had awarded air mail contractswhich made it necessary for the Post Department to write off a heavy loss each year on its air mail contracts. InCzechoslovakia, the State operated its own air service, and in India a start had been made by following the same policy,the Karachi-Delhi weekly service being controlled by the Government of India, although as a temporary arrangementthe aircraft and technical personnel were chartered from Imperial Airways. Sir Eric then gave the following figures of cost to thetaxpayer of air services :— Cost to the State per traffic ton mile.s. d. United States, 1929 .. . . 8 1Germany, 1928 8 8 France, 1928 15 8Great Britain, 1929— European services .. .. .. 3 4 All services .. . . .. ., 7 2 The table showed that Great Britain was getting bettervalue for money spent on civil aviation subsidies than the other large nations. For some years yet subsidies must continue to be paj(]There would always be transport services running to certain places which could not hope to pay. In the British Empirethere were many mail boat services to outlying parts which could never pay, and which were possible only because ofgrants paid by the Governments. They could not hope to achieve in air transport " payability " on services wheresea transport, with its hundreds of years' experience, had failed. But there were other air services between centres ofindustry which would, he believed, reach or nearly approach " payability " during the next decade. Conclusion Concluding his very interesting lecture, Sir Eric Geddessaid : "I have urged for simplicity in aircraft and engine design and construction, and now I press for simplicity in thestaggering number of laws, rules and regulations which present one of the most serious obstacles to the progress of airtransport. Here we must not cross a frontier after dark there we must deviate a hundred miles because we mustnot operate unless we call at a certain town, or we must not operate more than once weekly, and so the irritatingrestrictions and the insecurity of tenure which many of them impart hinder development. " Would that the legislators of the world had the far-sightedness of their forefathers, and declared the airwavs of the world as free as its seaways." I urge, too, for simplicity in the organisation of the Empire airways. We have considered how extension ofoperations is essential for economic success, but there are still those who believe that a long-distance route, such asEngland to Australia, can be run by a series of independent organisations. The India section run by an Indian concernthe Burmese section by a local Burmese line, and so on : a complicated and expensive series of local organisations, withfleet capacity and performance decided locally, with replace- ment plans out of step and with duplication of overheadexpenses, and reserves both of material and money. " Unified control and management of technical and com-mercial policies is essential. We must have one simple organisation in control of an arterial airway instead of anumber of disunited local lines. Divided control has never worked, and never will work." Air transport commenced with one great advantage. It is the first transport medium for which extensive scientificresearch preceded actual operations. WTith the ship, the train, and the car, their use as transport vehicles ran con-currently with the study of their science. The scientist worked alongside and sometimes behind the practical man,and perhaps experience proved a better master than theory in some respects, but in air transport there were manyyears of study before the aeroplane came to be used as a commercial conveyance. The years after an aeroplane firstflew were years of research, of many trials and many errors, and the development was aided and accelerated by the yearsof war. " It is as well it was so. The surface transport systems hada midway course. If the early railway engines could not achieve the speed for which the designers had aimed, thenthe engines merely operated to a slower schedule. The motor-car which failed to hold the road at speed merelywent slower at a safer speed. " There is not the same midway course in aviation." This difference in the evolution of air transport ma) explain in part the enormous relative progress of air trans-port in just over ten years compared to the stage of develop- ment reached by the earlier systems after they had exponentof only a decade of operation. " And still we must take no chances. Every step and changemust be planned to the finest degree. The micrometer is our measure—the first ships were gauged by the span. " When one reflects on the remote areas of th1' worwhere men are brought nearer to civilisation and the com- forts of life by the use of aircraft; when one realises the eaBe^interest with which the arrival of the air mail is :iwal,tc<[ 1in many parts of the world and in particular of the Bntis Empire, this diminishing of space seems a worthy a.'tt. -aim which the twentieth century can fulfil, and I he»e * that in so doing they may give back to our Empi e s0of the prosperity that our forefathers left to us as th. of the nineteenth century." 164
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