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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0704.PDF
•254 FLIGHT. MARCH 17, 1938. PRIVATE FLYING Topics of the Day ImpropagandaW HETHER in politics or otherwise, the most un- popular person to-day is the rationalist—in other words, the man or the woman who tries to see things as they really are and not through a dense cloud formed of preconceived notions, racial superstitions and personal emotions. If you don't believe me try being logical in argument about some matter which touches your opponent very closely—and watch the light of plain murder enter his eyes. The more right you are and the more successful you may be in attack and defence the more certain he will be that concentration camps ought to be available over here. Even the most kindly people are ready to impute magnificently unpalatable motives to those with whom they disagree. Furthermore, the most fantastic stories are invented (and believed) about persons who just happen to have ideas of their own. This sort of thing reaches a climax, of course, in times of war or revolution, but it is with milder examples of a similar kind that we are concerned in the flying world. Uusually the objects of the privately circulated attacks are groups of people rather than individuals, and the criticism is often directed against certain machines or cer- tain operating methods. A year or two ago, for instance, we were all told that the long-distance passengers of a particular foreign air line were transported so uncomfort- ably and over such long non-stop sections that, on reach- ing their destinations, they were on the verge of complete nervous breakdown. Absolute nonsense, of course, but some people believed it. The story, presumably, was con- sidered by its originators to be justifiable business propa- ganda. I think that more experienced business people have dis- covered that such propaganda usually turns and bites the perpetrators. Particularly dangerous is that type in, which the prospective passengers are asked to view the accident statistics of a certain rival company, because the prob- ability that your own fleet will shortly be littered about the countryside in'the same way is too great to be dis- counted. And you look so very silly if that happens. Disillusionment 17 OR some reason or other I imagined in my more callow1 youth that the people in this flying game were different ; that they would show the nabobs in the rest of the busi-ness world how things could be run without ill-feeling, without pettiness and without what I call " smartalec-ing." Certainly the pilots and those who do a real job of work on the operational side have shown that it is possible to live and let live in polite co-operation, but some of the nabobs have let them down. In cer- tain cases the methods by which an attempt has been made to obtain more traffic on certain routes would have dis- graced the Chicago of yesterday. Only a fortnight ago I heard, first-hand, of a piece of genuine full-bore four-flushing by one compa.ny in an endeavour to lever some passengers from another with which the first was supposed to be working in the closest possible co-operation. And if there is one thing which is entirely necessary in the development of all civil flying, it is full co-qperation in technical, operational and production matters between companies and between nations'. Without this co-operation the flying machine will remain, primarily, a device for the extermina- ' tion of the greatest possible number of living things in the shortest space of time. With co-operation in fullest measure, this machine may yet help to make a civilisation out of a mechanised barbarism. Ourselves A LTHOUGH all this may reasonably be printed under *» the heading of " Topics of the Day," its connection with private flying is not too obvious. The point is, however, that it seems to have been left? very largely to the ordinary private owner and amateiwJ pilot to show that flying can be a good rather than a bad influence on affairs in general. While the military boys; of different nations have been ordered by the appropriate section of the fearful and/or aggressive community to dig their own and other people's graves, the air transport chiefs are busy building faster and bigger machines in order to capture the world's traffic and, consequently, the trade of the future. In fact, the battle is joined, whether or not any actual military scuffle is ever started between the larger commercial Powers. Only the amateur tourist and competition pilot remains to spread what is left of the gospel. Even he is dis- couraged by a paucity of corridors and a plenitude of prohibited areas. Foreign touring is becoming something of a bother, though the aero clubs of the different countries try to make his movements as trouble-free as possible. At last year's international meeting at Zurich, for instance, less than half a dozen British pilots turned up, though support was quite reasonably ample for meetings at about the same period of the year at aerodromes which were 1 little nearer, and, perhaps, more get-at-able. On the whole, the amateur is, however, more free in Switzerland than in any European country—once he has, on his way down, rounded the corner at Montbeliard, where there is the father of all prohibited areas. Incidentally, I hope someone is busy trying to obtain the necessary support for one or more international meet- ings in this country during 1938. So far, none has been officially announced, though one, at least, can be expected. In their small way, such meetings always do quite a o" of good, and, as I've said before, we owe other people quite a fair amount in the way of arrears in hospitality- Our pilots seem always to be going abroad to some '' d° or other, and are rarely permitted to pay much more than a nominal sum for the privilege. As a race, however, we never have been very good at this international fellow- ship business. It is difficult, after all, to live down the pre-aviation effects of residing on a small island for a couple of thousand years. INDICATOR-
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