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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0378.PDF
i68 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY 13, 1^ below the L.53. Culley then stalled his Camel to get elevation, and opened fire with both guns. One soon jammed, but the other set the airship on fire. It was burnt up before it reached the water. One of the crew jumped out at a height of nearly three and a half miles—• we must presume by parachute (though Culley did not see one)—and was picked up almost unharmed by a Dutch ship. Culley found the Harwich force, and landed in the sea in front of his destroyer with one pint of petrol in his tank. His feat was rewarded by the grant of the Distin guished Service Order. His Camel was salvaged, and is now on view in the new War Museum in the Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, Lambeth. Multiplication . . . D URING the past few years Flight has occasionally stressed the economic absurdity of competition over single air routes when air transport is, in any case, only just reaching a self-supporting stage. At present three companies are flying to the Isle of Man from the mainland, and two are flying between London, Belfast and Glasgow, while in the summer months there are several more examples of possibly wasteful competition. Such service multiplication is a purely domestic matter and does not really concern us, but when these tactics extend to the Continent it is surely time to call a halt and to examine the situation. There are three British operators—one in collaboration with a foreign company— flying between London and Antwerp, and three flying between London and Brussels. Now .we have two British companies flying over an identical Scandinavian route, which is, furthermore ahead ' serviced by a foreign combination of companies' A third British concern is expected to launch yet another service over part of this route in the not distant future . . . and Division ]\T O doubt the two British companies have counted I y the cost and gauged the possible traffic, which may be disproportionately greater than we are entitled to imagine. No doubt, on one side or both, unsuccessful attempts have been made to come to an amicable under standing. Neither, even when working alone, can hope to make ends meet over a new route within a year—in fact, one of the companies openly states that a lot of money will need be spent before a really useful return can be expected. The effect of a duplication will simply mean that this period of gestation will be proportionately ex tended. For one, or even both, the money may be well spent, and competition, we are told, is the secret of prosperity. It is now much too late for one company to claim that it was " the first to think of running a Scandi navian service,'' or for the other to claim that it was the first to start—as proof of a right to fly exclusively over the route. In the meantime the spoils are divided. The position is pleasing to the travelling public, pleasing to the air craft manufacturers and pleasing—if a trifle idiotic—to the looker-on, who feels that air transport must be pro gressing favourably for such a contretemps to be possible. ..... -*—»„. «.,«* NOT SUCH A FAR FLIGHT OF FANCY ? A vehicle on the lines of this twin-rotor gyroplane, able to travel on land, m the air, or on the sea, is visualised by Harry Harper in an article in a recent issue of The Farmer's Home (supplement to The Farmer and Stock-Breeder). In general layout it is suggestive of the proposed Asboth helicopter described in Flight ot May 16, 1935. The drawing is by F. Gordon Crosby.
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