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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 1834.PDF
626 FLIGHT. JUNE 30, 1938. Organisation. Under the new arrangement the present Air Member for Research and Development, Air Marshal Sir Wilfrid R. Freeman, will be designated Air Member for Development and Production, and his period of ap- pointment will be extended by a period of at least two years. He will have under him the two newly appointed Director-Generals, Mr. Lemon in charge of production, and Air Vice-Marshal A. W. Tedder as Director-General of Research and Development. Sir Kingsley Wood stated in the House that Mr. Lemon will become a member of the Air Council. This is an unprecedented step, and doubtless the reason for it is the extreme anxiety which the House of Commons has dis- played on the subject of production of aircraft. No critic will now be able to say that R.A.F. officers have the whole say in the matter. Those, and they are many, who share with Mr. O. E. Simmonds the hope that the new posts are. part of a scheme for reorganising supply in the Air Ministry may take comfort from Sir Kingsley Wood's reply to Mr, Simmonds: " It is, at any rate I hope, a good begin- ning. " You May Fly long last one practical step has been taken towards setting the May bury scheme into motion. A licensing authority has been set up, consisting of Mr. frustram Eve, Sir Frederick Sykes, and Mr. F. R. Davenport. The report of the Maybury Committee is now such ancient history that our readers may well have forgotten what the scheme recommended by that Commit- tee really was. A map was drawn up, which looked like a complication of the letter X, showing estimated routes of profitable air traffic. The centre of the X was at some point in the Manchester-Liverpool district. In order to prevent wasteful competition where it was still to be proved if there would be enough traffic to make one air line pay, companies were to be licensed to operate on such and such a line, thus establishing a practical monopoly. The next step was to set up an authority which had power to grant such licences, and this has now been done. The above-mentioned trio will have to examine the quali- fications of would-be operators and decide which is the most suitable. In this way it is hoped that mushroom companies will be restrained from starting air line activi- ties with wholly inadequate resources of capital and air- craft, which either have to be bought out as going concerns or else bring discredit on air transport by ending up in the bankruptcy court. Through to Australia '. - „O N Sunday last two Short Empire boats set off from Hythe with mails and passengers for Australia. Those who are going through are due at Sydney on July 5. It is rather a staggering thought, especially for older people who spent part of their lives out in the Empire before the coming of air transport. In those old days it took a fortnight for a letter to get from Marseilles to Bombay, and that letter was about seventeen days old by the time it reached the addressee somewhere in India. Mail day was always the event of the week to the exiles in the " Land of Regrets." But the exile in Australia was in far worse case, for it took a month for a letter from Home to reach Melbourne ; and then it had to travel over- land to wherever the exile might be. No wonder that many parents shrank from the idea of letting their sons go oti to make their fortunes in the Commonwealth; for when it took the best part of three months to get an answer to a letter, the parents naturally felt that- they had lost all close touch with their son. Now, at the worst, it only takes nine days for a letter to get to Sydney, and soon that time will be reduced to a week. In a case of emergency it is also possible for the son to get Home in the same time. Of course, only those who can command a fair amount of money could afford to pay for the passage by air, but there is comfort in the thought that the possibility exists if the money is forth- coming. But keeping in touch depends far more on getting letters speedily and frequently than upon the chance of personal meetings. In that respect Australia is now far nearer to the Homeland than India was a short twenty years ago. Thirty=one Thousand a Year WHILE anxiety has been expressed in Parliamentand the Press about the rate of production ofaircraft, nobody has any doubt about the ability and readiness of the country to provide all the men which the Royal Air Force needs. The new Air Minister, Sir Kingsley Wood, who well understands the importance of enlisting the help of the Press for any national campaign, is coolly asking for no fewer than thirty-one thousand offi- cers and men for the R.A.F. during the current financial year. The Press is giving hearty support to the appeal, and already the recruits are, we are told, thronging to the recruiting offices. As set forth elsewhere in this issue, the numbers required are: 2,100 pilots, 550 observers, 26,000 tradesmen and un- skilled men, and 3,000 boys. It is really an amazing demand ; but the terms offered are distinctly attractive and the spirit of patriotism is running high. Side by side with patriotism is the taste for adventure, which is always a strong feature of the British character. No adventure so appeals to British youth as the adventure of the air, and even the boy who enters as an apprentice clerk may end up as a sergeant pilot, perhaps even as an officer pilot with a permanent commission. There is also an intense satis- faction to men of mechanical mind in keeping an aeroplane ready for the use of their pilots, in whom they take an almost fatherly interest. There is no real doubt that Sir Kingsley Wood will get all the men he needs, and then still more next year. Moving Towards United Command EVER and anon wisdom is justified of her children.Not once nor twice in our long island story has Flightput her finger on some point of air affairs which needed reform, and sometimes has very much annoyed the powers that be (or that were) by so doing. None the less, persistence in the cause of common sense gradually pro- duces an effect, and Flight's suggestions have more than once been translated into fact, much to the benefit of the British body politic. For years past we have declaimed against the dangers which were inherent in the principle of divided command and divided responsibility, particularly in the case of the Fleet Air Arm and of the ground elements of air defence. Guns and searchlights have to work in the closest co- operation with the fighters, and it was, therefore, illogical that the air elements and the ground elements should be recruited, paid, organised, and equipped by two separate Ministries. Our suggestion of unity was once somewhat scathingly alluded to by a former Air Minister. To-day, however, the War Minister, Mr. Hore-Belisha, is to announce some change in the organisation which will, we hope, at least lessen the evils of the divided responsibility. It is not to be expected that the whole responsibility for the guns and searchlights will be at once handed over to the Air Ministry. That would be the logical thing to do, but to follow logic is not always a practical policy. The Air Ministry could hardly take over the whole of the recruiting for the batteries and searchlight battalions at the moment; it has a sufficiently large recruiting business on its hands already. But it may be taken as certain that some step in the right direction will be announced. And once a ball has been started rolling it may not stop until it reaches the position where it will lie firmly at rest. DIARY OF FORTHCOMING EVENTS—PAGE 638
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