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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0022.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 11, 1934 amphibian, prepared for catapulting, for use on the seaplane carrier Albatross. We hope to see this programme carried out during the coming year. That is not an extravagant programme of hopes, and we shall be grievously disappointed if it is not com- pleted in full before 1934 has become history. Turning to civil flying, we want quite a number of little things. Chiefly we want more speed, higher cruising speed for British civil aircraft. It can be done, we are convinced. American designers have done it, and what they can do we can do. We have dabbled in a degree of speed, for the Air Ministry ordered one mailplane, but that has been crashed. What is to be our next step? We cannot leave matters where they are. The Director of Civil Aviation in India, for example, demands a machine with an average cruising speed of 175 miles an hour to carry mails daily between Bombay and Calcutta. He wants five machines of that sort for a start, and it will be only a start. More will soon be needed; for once mankind has tasted speed it becomes like a tiger which has tasted blood, and never loses the thirst for it. Then there is the MacRobertson inter- national race to Australia. That calls for high cruising speed, and we British have as yet no machine which is likely to beat the American entrants. Are we to celebrate British enterprise in colonising Victoria and building Melbourne by show- ing the world that foreign machines are faster, not than the best which Britain can do, but than what Britain has done? That would be a poor advertise- ment of Imperial pride. ; . In Great Britain we want to see more airports and landing grounds. The Prince of Wales wants more of them, and he has voiced the demand of the people of this country. We are not at all sure that we want to see, as yet, an aerodrome built across the Thames. That noble river as it passes through London needs ventilation. We should not like to see (and prob- ably we should not like to smell) old Father Thames cribbed, cabined, and confined. A tube connection between Croydon and central London would be preferable. Lower landing speeds, which we are learning are not incompatible with high cruising speed, may yet do much to solve the problem of central aerodromes in some cities, and we have not yet seen the full development of the Autogiro. A passenger Autogiro, to carry five passengers, has been ordered by the Air Ministry, but has not yet made its appearance. We want to see it in the air in 1934. Very particularly we want to see the Eastern air- way, which has already reached Singapore, extended to Australia. That we feel assured will happen before the year is out. The Australian Government has published the terms of contract and is awaiting tenders. Perhaps it has already received some. We make no secret of our opinion that the best thing which could happen would be for the main contract from Singapore to Cootamundra to be secured by the company which is being formed by Imperial Airways and Q.A.N.T.A.S. We hope, however, that this company will not for long remain contented with a time of transit which exceeds a fortnight. Monopolies and subsidies may militate against high cruising speed, but wise policy will see to it that something better than the necessary minimum is provided. At home we want to see some definite results from the deliberations of the Gorell Committee on civil flying, and we want those results to be prompt. Judicious liberation of civil flying from over-control should result in the production of some low-powered cheap aeroplanes, which would provide lots of fun for people in the British Isles, and would surely lead to a general increase of flying, which is what we all want. We want to see further advance in the production of British flying boats. As the Americans seem very keen to make the first experiments in an air service between the United States and Bermuda, it may not be unwise to allow them to make the first efforts and amass experience from which everyone will benefit. We have not yet got a boat which can fly across the Atlantic by the Azores-Bermuda route with a remunerative pay-load, and it may be that the increase of structure weight in large sizes will continue to prevent the production of the commercial Atlantic boat. At the least we must watch all developments, and if a real opportunity occurs we must be prepared to take advantage of the central position of Bermuda. Finally, we want very earnestly to see something really constructive done about the peril to aircraft from pylons and cables. The last year went out with a terrible tragedy in the crash of the Apollo, and our Croydon correspondent keeps on manfully reminding the authorities that a very dangerous beacon mast has been erected on the London aerodrome, that aerodome which we should like to think was a model of what an airport should be. What we do not want in 1934 is more tragedies to civil aircraft. • • Sir Frederick Sykes once described Cairo as the future Clapham Junction of the air. Some people laughed at him, but Sir Frederick was rarely wrong. He was only ahead of his time. The recent flying meeting held in Egypt, or Misr (to give Misr the land its Arabic name), which has been faithfully reported in these columns by our special correspondent, has drawn attention to the importance of the country froin a flying point of view. The meeting was organised by a committee, working under the Aero Club of Egypt, to celebrate the holding in Cairo of the annual Con- gress of the Federation Ae"ronautique Internationale. Naturally, it was an international meeting, and we may feel proud that the principal race was won by a British pilot in a British aeroplane. This gathering at Cairo of air sportsmen of many nations drove it home to everyone that Egypt is the land where the air routes to Europe, Africa, and Asia all meet. Imperial Airways once for a while tried the experiment of cutting Egypt out of the Europe-Asia route, and flew direct from Greece to Palestine, but the experiment was abandoned, and now both the great airways make direct for Cairo. Incidentally, the meeting coincided with another memorable event, for the " Scipio " flying boat, in which our special correspondent left Brindisi, did not stop at Alexandria and there send its passengers and mails on to Cairo by train, but for the first time flew on and landed on the Nile in the very heart of the city, thus saving about three hours of travel. The meeting was a very successful one, and we are glad to hear that it is to become, in one form or another, an annual event. 24
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