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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1368.PDF
1372 FLIGHT. DECEMBER 27, 1934. THE AIR The proposed times for the journeys and the present times are as follows :— To-day's Proposed To-day's Proposed— Times • • Times Times Days. Days. Days.Singapore 8i 4 Australia(Brisbane) ... 12I 7 Times Days.India 61 ...Just over i East Africa 6| 2Capetown 9 4 The proposed number of journeys per week is :• India 4 or 5 East Africa 3 Singapore The proposed postal charge of the following:— Per half-ounce.Rates up to November To-dav's Egypt PalestineSudan KenyaN. Rhodesia 17, 1934-d. - 3i... 3i • • 5 ... 7 ... 9 rates, s. d. O 3 o 3 o 3 o 6 o 6 speed of the services. The alternative is to use separate pas- senger and mail machines and to send mails through to Australia, not in a week but in three days. That seems to us to be the ideal way of dealing with the problem, and we believe that it will remain the ideal way, even after the daily passenger service has been instituted. For the moment, however, we prefer to gaze with pleas- ure on the grand new prospect opened out, rather than to dwell on pos- sible drawbacks, and on points where the scheme falls short of the ideal. It is a great conception, and we offer our heartiest congratulations to the Air Ministry, to the Post Office, and to Imperial Airways. A Director-Qjeneral of Civil AviationT HE decision to raise the status of the head of the Civil Aviation Department of the Air Ministry by making him Director-General, instead of merely Director, should set at rest the anxieties of the par- liamentary air committee. That active body has been much concerned about the statutory relations of the Air Council and the Director of Civil Aviation. These re- lations date from just after the Armistice. The War ended with Sir Frederick Sykes as Chief of the Air Staff and Sir Hugh (now Lord) Trenchard in command of the Independent Air Force. There had to be :i reshuffling of posts, and Sir Hugh was made Chief of the Air Staff and entrusted with the formation of the new Royal Air Force, in which at the time no officer held a permanent commission. Sir Frederick was given the new and equally important task of forming and organising the whole fabric of civil flying under Air Ministry control. It would, of course, have been deroga- tory to an officer of his rank and services to have offered him a mere directorship, and so he was made Controller of Civil Aviation and a member of the Air Council. The Air Council was certainly made statutorily res- ponsible for both military and civil flying, for it was not then fully foreseen how far those two branches would diverge in the next few years. When Sir Frederick Sykes was succeeded by Sir Sefton Brancker the Controllership of Civil Aviation was abolished, and a Directorship was substituted. The D.C.A. was not a member of the Air Council, but worked immediately under the Under-Secretary of State, who was charged by statute with the care of civil flying, and was given direct access to the Secretary of State whenever such contact was desired. In effect, the statute which charged the Air Council with responsibility for civil flying became a dead letter, though the statute remained unaltered. It is a trouble- some business to get a statute altered, especially when MAIL PROPOSALS South Africa 2 Australia 2 " about l\d." compares with Per half-ounce.Rates up to November To-day's 17, 1934-d. South Africa 10 India 8 Malaya 11 Australia — rates, s. d. o 6 the time of parlia- ment is so fully occu- pied as it is just now. In practice, how- ever, the military and civil sides of the Air Ministry have worked as in water- tight compartments, and the Air Members of Council have shown no disposition to interfere with the civil side. It would not have been easy for them to do so if they had felt in- clined, once the Director of Civil Aviation had per- suaded the Under- secretary and the Secretary of State of the desirability of his proposals. The idea of interference by the Air Council into civil flying may perhaps have arisen from a certain com- mittee formed several years ago, on which Sir Hugh Trenchard (as he then was) had a seat. He wrote a minority report, in which he said that he was opposed to subsidies for commercial air lines. That report, how- ever, did not prevent the Government from granting subsidies to the cross-Channel flying companies and, later, to Imperial Airways. A minority report by a member of a committee was not the same as action by the Air Council. Qood Will in the Past CONTACT between the two sides of the Air Ministrythere certainly has been, and from that contactthe civil side has, on the whole, gained. The opening up of the African Airway by the Middle East Command during the War, when there was no Department of Civil Aviation, and the operation of the Baghdad Air Mail by the same Command for several years before Imperial Airways were ready to take it over, are not, perhaps, cases in point. Very much to the point was the active part played by No. 203 (Flying Boat) Squadron in surveying the route along the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf when Im- perial Airways found it necessary to abandon the Per- sian shore route. Had civil flying been the care of any department of State other than the Air Ministry we cannot feel sure that the Royal Air Force would have been so ready and willing to spend much time in surveying this route. In fact, the working of the two branches of the Air Ministry in the past has been sufficiently satisfactory. The new dignity conferred upon the civil side will, however, mark its independence in a way which all may see, and therefore is to be welcomed. It is, more- over, a sound principle to put matters on such a footing that harmonious working does not depend on good will and tact between individual officials. It is best to guard against the possibility of some future lawyer-minded Chief of the Air Staff trying to exert a constitutional right to interfere with the civil side. It was an im- probable possibility, but now even that possibility has been definitely removed.
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