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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 2082.PDF
I AIRCRAFT ENGINEER AND AIRSHIPS fJRSr AERONAUTICAflfcEKLY IN THE^WoRLD I FOUNDED WOO Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegiams : Truditur, Sedijl, London. Ttiephjue : Waterloo 3333 (50 hnel;. 26B. RENFIELD ST.. GLASGOW C.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. HERTFORD ST.. COYEKTRY. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. <M li.MI.U.l. BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST.. BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: A utopress, Birmingham. Telephone: MiuUand 2971. 2«0, DEAN8GATE. MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. SUBSCRIPTION BATES: Home and Canada: Other Countries: Year, £1 13 0. Year, £1 IS a 6 month*. 16s. M. 6 months, 17a 6.1. 3 months, Pa, 6<L 3 months, 8s. 90. No. 1440. Vol. XXX. JULY 3D, 193S. Thursdays, Price 6d. Safer Service tlying THE last few weeks have seen a very deplorable number of fatal flying accidents to R.A.F. per sonnel, and certain sections of the Press with morbidly statistical minds delight to inform their readers of the total fatalities since the beginning of the year. It has been said that statistics are the worst form of lie, and a bald statement of accidents can certainly give a very false impression. They may seem to imply that the Royal Air Force is a very dangerous profession, and that parents would be wise to prevent their sons from joining it. Let us face those figures, not in a callous frame of mind—for every death of a young man is a tragedy— but in order to see whether the work of a pilot in the R.A.F. does entail an undue amount of danger. When estimating risks the only fair method to adopt is to take the number of fatal accidents, not the number of deaths, for the crash of one large machine may cause a number of fatalities. Up to July 22 of this year there have been thirty-three fatal crashes in the R.A.F., seventeen at home and sixteen overseas. Between them these have caused sixty-six deaths. Four of these accidents occurred during initial training, two at civilian schools and two at R.A.F. Flying Training Schools. There have also been eight lives saved by parachutes. Some ten years ago, when the Royal Air Force was very much smaller than it is now, there was one very bad year when the number of fatal crashes was greater than the number in 1935. It is misleading to compare or>e year with anothet, iegcause chance plays such a 'arge part in swelling the figures of one year and re ducing them the next. One should reckon in periods if °ne is to get a true picture of increasing or diminishing c/H ^gree °f risk run by one pilot must be con sidered in proportion to the number of pilots flying and me nu mber of hours flown. It is not possible to give the average number of hours flown by each pilot in the course of a year at the present time, but it can safely be said that every year a pilot spends more hours in the air than he did the year before. It goes without saying that the total of hours flown by R.A.F. pilots has in creased greatly of late. When the expansion started in 1934 there were about 2,000 pilots in the Service. There are now 3,000, as well as 1,300 under instruction. It is obvious, therefore, that the odds in favour of any individual pilot leading a long life and ultimately dying in his bed are very much greater than they were a few years ago. One may go further and say that those odds are now long odds. Even without knowing the exact figures one can see that the degree of risk on any flight (presuming no abnormal circumstances) is so slight that no one would worry about it. Flying in the Service is growing steadily safer. Thorough Training The increasing degree of safety is hardly to be won dered at when one considers the extreme care taken during training. There are now no unqualified instruc tors, as there were during the war years. Training is all done on a system, and every instructor has to pass through the Central Flying School and absorb its methods before he is allowed to teach pupils to fly. The machines are very sound, and it is a long time since any accidents were caused through a Service aeroplane breaking in the air. A flying pupil is under instruction for about a year. First he goes to a civil training school, where he puts in fifty hours in the air. Of these, twenty hours are dual, six are for instruction in instrument flying, and twenty-four are solo. Then he goes on to one of the R.A.F. Flying Training Schools, where his preliminary training is completed and he qualifies for his "wings." At all stages he is liable to revert from solo to dual flying, to see that he is not developing faults. Up till a short time ago the pilot was sent off to a squadron as soon as he got his " wings," and in the squadron was put through a further
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