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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0317.PDF
FEBRUARY 3, 1938. FLIGHT. 109- COMMEl Proportion: The first A.W. Ensign,now at Coventry, with a few attendants from the A.S.T. school fleet at Hamble. THE WEEK AT CROYDON More "Records" : New Inventions : Farnborough Again : Omni-directional : Any Port in a Storm WE have had more gales fit totear Croydon up by the roots.Some pilots thought it better to travel hopefully than to arrive, so they landed at Lympne and places. Others, dis- approving of the modern mania for speed, took one look at wind force reports and decided that, with the available flying stock, it would be a retrograde step—oh, definitely! —to fly at all. There was, of course, a lot of "one-way record break- ing." Air France grabbed the blue riband of the Straits of Dover on Saturday morning, and lost it in the evening to British Airways. Capt. Denis Slocum, of the latter company, held it for a space the week before last, and broadcast, consequently, in "In Town To-night." This worthy, when not break- ing records, lives his life according to his own ideas. After flying, he leaps into a high-speed sports car and seeks a sequestered bachelor cottage about ninety miles from the airport. There he cooks for himself and smokes a contemplative cigar over a book. In the morning, around dawn, he ups and does a spot of gardening before making the return trip to the airport for duty. Afterthoughts The Airports Conference afforded me with some amus- ing thoughts. Most of the things so earnestly advocated are daily routine at places like Croydon or Heston, and one wonders why airport owners do not study existing organisations instead of inventing the stuff all over again. Two things were advocated, I noticed, which have been urged in Flight in the past. One was the covered departure platform which even the poor railroad pas- senger gets, and the other was the airport information bureau. The first of these is essential to remove that primitive business when '' luxury travellers'' walk across a rain-swept area, and covered wagons and what-not are no proper solution to this evil. As for the second, it is neither difficult nor expensive; it would not be vastly unpopular, nor would it constitute a menace to traffic, and, therefore, I do not expect the authorities to adopt the idea at Croydon. There is, in fact, no kick in the kiosk idea, for, being a reasonable one, there would be no opposition to it. But the opposition to these comic pylons and things makes their sponsors feel all grim-jawed and totalitarian, with perhaps an occasional fit of the dithero-jitters when the word "responsibility" is mentioned. We are told that no further cubits will be added to the pylons' stature, and that the matter is receiving earnest consideration. It is not consideration that is wanted, but just demolition. One imagines that this is the mysterious process of saving face, but, really, some faces are better lost. You and I may rise each morn with the equally reluctant lark, whose song at this time of the year, heard faintly through the fog, is all about chilblains on his feet and ice formation on his wings. Farnborough, however, arises once and for all from its long winter sleep about the time that pretty harbinger of ant-icing devices, the snowdrop, pushes a white, scared face through the soil. Sure enough, no sooner had I tripped over the first snowdrop than the balloon went up from Farnborough, trailing 300ft. of cable behind it, and went dodging around seeking whom it might devour amongst the ever-increasing throng of trans- port machines. Airline people are becoming unreasonably fussy about these free balloons for, after all, they are not much more dangerous than a lot of floating mines in a busy shipping channel, and who would grumble at that? Farnborough will be hurt and surprised to learn that its well-known popularity has received a bit of a setback in civil aviation circles over this apparently harmless little jest. There are those who expect an apology, but, unlike our little friends the Japanese, the Nabobs of Farnborough do not apologise after an " incident." Mind you, I'm all in favour of Farn- borough, and I have taken endless trouble to suppress "canards" to the effect that this balloon (launched by Prof. Monty Golfer, of the Royal and Ancient Establish- ment) is the completion of a hot-air experiment started a century ago and then shelved until it came up again in strict rotation. Nor do I altogether believe that the basket contained a cock, goat, small ass and lightweight highbrow waving a red flag. High'Speed Secrets On Sunday the French technical mission arrived by Air France. Its five members will study British methods of air industry and production in factories at Bristol, Birming- ham and Southampton. The secret of high-speed produc- tion, as so strikingly evinced by our shadow factories, may, it is thought, be revealed to them. British Airways have just taken delivery of a new Junkers Ju. 52 for their night mail service, and North Eastern Airways, who contemplate an intensive flying pro- gramme for next summer, have placed an order for two D.H. Rapides. Some airline people were alarmed by the new directional system of air traffic control (described in Flight last week) because it seemed to allow loopholes for mild private owners and ferocious military- gents to fly all over the air routes in weather beyond their capacities, not only as the crow flies, but backwards, sideways, upside down and vertically like tumbler pigeons who have been at the brewery malt heap. Malt aside, though, I don't think anyone, even if permitted, would go a-pleasuring by air in dirty weather, especially where big aeroplanes were apt to barge into
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