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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0034.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 8, l»az THE FLYING CLUB SUBSIDY W 'HE ELEVATOR," which is the official organ of the Lancashire Aero Club, and is edited by Alan Goodfellow and James Hembrow, has, in its issue for January, 1932, put forth a very sound statement of the facts as they stand to-day con cerning the subsidy question. Furthermore, an excellent proposition is made for the future awarding of subsidies ; a proposition which should, we feel, be examined very carefully. This is what they say : — " The D.C.A. and the Clubs " " It seems opportune, now that the D.C.A. has brought the matter up by his speech at the Clubhouse opening, to refer once more to the question of the Air Ministry Agree ment with the Light Aeroplane Clubs. It is true that the present agreement does not expire until next July, but we made the mistake last time of leaving it too late before making our protest. " At the risk of hurting the feelings of some people, it is necessary to speak plainly about the events which led up to the present Agreement. When the original five clubs first started, it was with the aid of a grant of two machines and £1,000 a year each Partly owing to the facts that the clubs had everything to learn and partly because they tried to provide flying too cheaply, they found it quite impossible to make ends meet on this basis. The Lanca shire Aero Club, for example, lost £1,350 in its first two years of operation. Eealising the value of the clubs, the Government then decided to extend the scheme and to increase the grant. For the next three years the grant was at the rate of £50 per new licence, £10 for old licences renewed, and 30s. per flying hour, up to a maximum of £2,000 per annum per club. " On this basis, aided by several generous donations and successful air pageants, we succeeded in making a better show, and bv the end of the three years we had wiped out our debit balance and seemed to be on the high road to financial security Unfortunately, however, at this moment a new factor came into the scheme of things which upset all the existing arrangements. " Certain gentlemen came forward with a scheme for the organisation upon a commercial basis of a chain of flying clubs and aerodromes throughout the country. They submitted estimates to show that they could not only do this upon a fraction of the subsidy then being given to the existing clubs, but could also make a substantial trad ing profit into the bargain. The associated clubs, having had some years of experience by this time, examined the figures and reported, with perhaps more forbearance than the occasion warranted, that they were not strictly in agreement with them. The Government of the day, how ever, accepted the estimates and granted the subsidy asked for upon condition that it was only to become payable upon the completion of the chain of aerodromes and land ing grounds (nearly one hundred in number) as advertised by the promoters. It was obvious that if the estimates were correct, the Light Aeroplane Clubs must be about the least efficient organisations ever known, or that, if they were efficient, then the estimates must be totally inaccurate. Perhaps one can hardly blame the Govern ment for seeking to save money by accepting the first alternative. The natural result was, of course, that when the existing club agreements had expired, they were re newed upon the same terms as those granted to N.F.S., namely, £10 per licence. Even at that, great difficulty was experienced in getting them renewed at all. " What the associated clubs foresaw has come to pass. With the greatest appreciation of the efforts now being put forward by N.F.S. and of the individuals now respon sible for its management, it cannot be said that the promises made have been fulfilled. Indeed, it seems probable that the very people now responsible for N.F.S. regret most keenly the promises made by their prede cessors. It is true that they have accomplished something, but they are still a very long way short of the chain of aerodromes and flying clubs that we were to see on all sides, while the value of their shares in the market speaks for itself as an indication of their trading results. " Meanwhile, the associated clubs, crippled financially by the drastic reduction of grants, and fighting an acute period of trade depression, are in little better shape. Some of them, like ourselves, have managed to put a little bit by to reserve and are now living on their capital. Others are gradual! - piling up bank overdrafts. Few, if any of them, can see their way to make both ends meet. " When the present agreement was entered into, three serious objections to it were raised by the clubs. In the first place, it was insufficient in amount ; in the second place, it was insufficient in length of time ; and in the third place, it was based upon licences only, instead of oil both licences and flying hours. The same three objec tions are just as true now as they were then, but can perhaps be raised with greater force now in view of the experience of the last two years. "To take them in reverse order, any subsidy dependent either upon licences or upon flying hours alone is too much influenced by local conditions. Where it is based upon licences alone, it has the additional disadvantage that it provides a direct incentive to the neglect of secondary training after a pilot has obtained his ' A ' licence, both in the shape of advanced dual and in the shape of adequate flying practice. " The period of the agreement is almost as important. In framing a programme, it is very important for a club to be able to budget several years ahead. An agreement tor one, two or three years gives no adequate opportunity for this, and to be of the utmost value the agreement should extend for at least five or preferably ten years, subject, of course, to the satisfactory organisation of the club during that period. " Lastly, as regards amount, the D.C.A. admitted that light aeroplane flying costs £2 15s. per hour, and that experience has shown £2 per hour to be the maximum which the clubs can hope to get from their members. This leaves a gap of 15s. per hour, and in our own ex perience and the experience of several other clubs the gap is in fact even wider, frequently approaching, and in some cases exceeding. £1 per hour. It is obvious that this gap cannot be bridged by subscriptions alone, while it is equally obvious that the present subsidy does not fill more than one-third of it at the outside in the great majority of cases. " Some clubs are able to reduce the gap by the profits from air pageants, but it is not every club whose aero drome is suitable for this purpose, and in any case the day of the flying pageant as a means of making profits is largely over so far as the clubs are concerned. Others provide more or less extensive social facilities, but while these are useful as a means of increasing the membership, they are not directly profitable as a rule owing to the ' seasonal ' and ' week-end ' nature of the clubs' activities. The plain truth is that it is not possible to bridge the gap under existing circumstances to such an extent as will give the clubs a reasonable chance of carrying on upon a permanent basis. " When the clubs first started, it was thought that the cost of light aeroplane flying would show a progressive downward tendency. Unfortunately, the increase in horse power and the recent petrol tax have combined to upset this calculation, and the plain fact is that it costs just about as much to run a light aeroplane to-day as it did five years ago—albeit the aeroplane is a considerably better " If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer." " It is fashionable at the moment to announce, either in print or on the wireless, what one would do if placed in unlikely positions of supreme power, such as Dictator of the World or Chairman of the Manchester Airport Com mittee. We may be forgiven, therefore, for saying what we would do if it lay in our power to dictate the terms of the new agreement to be entered into between the Govern ment and the Clubs. " In the first place, we should decide how many Clubs were necessary in the National interests and how many we could afford to support. We should then require every Club to submit its records up to date and should select the best Clubs up to the fixed number. " We should then enter into an agreement with each of these Clubs for a period of ten years, but with the following safeguards as to termination: At the end of each year of the agreement the number of new and re newed licences gained by each Club during the year would be added up, each Club getting two points for each new licence and one point for each renewed licence, with a further one point for every twenty-five hours' Club flying carried out during the year. The points would then be 34
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