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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0181.PDF
JANUARY 23, 1936. FLIGHT. 83 Private Flying i U Topics of the Day The Slow Advance I MPORTANT though the questions of first cost and maintenance may be, there appears to me to be one and final reason for the virtually imperceptible way in which the number of private owners is increasing. Of course, the fact that it is a steady increase and not a fluc tuating figure gives one cause for a little mild optimism, but the increase is hardly what was expected by the majority of interested persons in, say, 1925, when the first real opportunities were provided by a benevolent Govern ment and by one or two far-sighted manufacturers. This one reason is undoubtedly Weather. The man or woman who feels that ownership is just within his or her means realises that there are a very large number of days in the year on which useful flying is rendered impossible without expensive and difficult aids to navigation. Many keen prospective owners would willingly give up their motoring to pay for flying if they could only feel that they might use their machines on ninety per cent, of the days of the year without running unreasonable risks. There are, of course, hundreds of well-to-do people who could actually afford to run large machines with fully qualified pilots and/or radio operators, but these people appear to be either too old—in mind or body—or too des perately conservative to consider the idea. A few, for one reason or another, actively dislike or fear the air, and for these one can only feel sympathy. Most of us, at one time or another, were, as children, filled with a quite unreason ing and appalling dread of water, whether deep or shallow. Depressing the Owner A WEEK or two ago Miss De Bunsen, the Heston Press **• secretary, published in her weekly Bulletin some singularly interesting, if depressing, figures concerning last year's weather. During December, for instance, which was probably, it must be admitted, the worst flying month experienced during the last three years, only nine days were fit for the Airwork school pupils and for the average private owner. That, of course, is a staggering admission, but facts must be faced. Only 217 days out of the 365 of the whole year—about ™y-nine per cent.—were suitable for normal owner pilots, as compared with the 239 days recorded in 1934 and the 2oi in 1933. It looks as if things are getting worse, and tnat eventually every machine, except those which are Lorenzequipped, will be weather-bound! heedless to say, the air line and charter pilots merely jjigned at the weather on most of the twenty-two wicked Member days, but private owners cannot be expected to a't until they have piled up 5,000 hours, or to take a ^"rse in R/T and W/T and in semi-blind approaches. "-Vlng is not their lifework. Safe Quidance GQONER or later our light aeroplane manufacturers may k -' find it necessary to subsidise some person or persons unknown to evolve means whereby the private owner can fly and arrive on the hundred-odd bad days of the average year—means, too, which will not interfere with or endanger the transport machines flying on their more earnest business. Anybody who has been in Croydon's or Heston's control tower while a radio-less private owner has come in under Q.B.I, conditions will understand what I mean by the word "interfere." On one occasion at Croydon, I believe, an Air France and an Imperial machine were kept waiting outside the controlled zone while some ill-advised ov/ner blundered around before finally deciding that Hesto, 1 or Hatfield might be better suited to his purposes. He prob ably received a sharp little note from the Air Ministry if the control officer managed to see his registration letters. The owner already has an instrument of extreme use fulness in the radio homing device, or even, if he is pre pared to use some navigational ability, in the radio com pass. Unfortunately, the number of available broadcast ing stations is rather limited in this country, though a pilot who is actually lost can always " home " on some station giving a course which will take him to comparative safety- over country which is known to have no heights whi.;h might be dangerous with a low ceiling. Short'ivave Possibilities THE use of short-wave transmitters and receivers—whi.-.h can be both compact and light in weight—has not yst been fully exploited, and the private owner of the future might be assigned a certain waveband at that end of the scale. With a simply operated set and homing device, the normal private owner might be able to increase consider ably the sphere of his machine's usefulness. Furthermore—and this is an important point which is often overlooked, the fully equipped private pilot would not be held back by a caution, which is commendable enough, while his navigational equipment is so limited. Often, in the course of a year, one decides to travel by rail or road simply because of the possibility that, when flying oneself, an unexpected patch of bad weather might send one back to the home aerodrome. People with jobs of work to do cannot afford to take the risk of being unable to get through to their destinations. For the moment the firms need not worry too much about the owner market, since orders for training and other Service or semi-Service types are keeping them busy, but the market will need to be expanded sooner or later. That is, if I can be optimistic enough to believe that some one will call a halt, eventually, in the race towards mutual and uncomfortable destruction. INDICATOR.
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