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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0905.PDF
MARCH 28, 194c 283 The Yankee Clipper, inbound from Europe, taxis past the American freighter City of Flint, docked at Baltimore after itsrecent famous voyage during whieh it was captured by a German warship and freed by Norway. COMMERCIAL AVIATION THOSE in charge of the good ship '' Civil Aviation ''look extremely jolly on deck in their white duckpants and their little yacht hats set at the exact angle approved by Mr. Lincoln and warmly seconded by Mr. Bennet. Each cap, by the way, has a small round hole in front, and the peak acts as an alighting board for the bees which, just at the moment, appear to be swarm- ing. Most of the rather over-numerous Captains of the ship stand tense at the helm, tugging in opposite directions and yelling contradictory orders down the engine room speaking tube. This might lead to confusion but for the fact that the helm is not coupled up to the rudder but to a ventilator in the saloon where the three Commissars who really rule the ship sprawl at their ease. They are clad in the most decorative uniforms of the three fighting services and their hats are solid brass superimposed upon heads of solid ivory. As lor the engine room speaking tube, it has a sock in one end and a cork in the other, and anyway the stokers have all gone to their tea and the boilers are cold but otherwise everything in the garden is lovely. But the garden is on a lee shore towards which the good ship Civil Aviation is drifting with a celerity unusual in Civil Aviation affairs, so that neither horticulturally nor nautically is any particular progress being made. Bodies of Experts Meanwhile the Captains and the Kings on deck twiddle the tiller and cast eagle glances to larboard, to starboard and especially aloft where the sun rapidly climbs to its appointed position in relation to the yardarm. The repre- sentatives of the Operating Companies, battened down under hatchet, in four foot of bilge water, await the wreck of tne ship, confident that they will not only be drowned but court martialled as well for losing it and that, I think, is a M ghtly allegorical estimate of the position. Maybe I am wrong and perhaps a tremendously forceful ana progressive drive in civil aviation is to be expected. ere 1S) for example, to be a sequestered, cobwebbed retirmg room somewhere, I understand, with '"Hush, Silence and Do not Disturb " on the door. Within will drowse an Advisory Committee to '' Keep under review the position of civil aviation" in the light (considerably dimmed) of the present situation and to plan for the future. In an inner room heavily padded and decorated with drowsy poppies " a small body of experts will keep in close touch with technical development in the field of civil aviation abroad." But When? And what is our experience of Advisory Committees, chaps, and worse still, of small bodies of experts? Expert 1: "What's all this about variable pitch props abroad, George? " Expert 2: "Never heard of them, old man. I'm busy turning down some revolutionary idea some foreign fella's got hold of, to substitute metal props for wooden ones. Horrible idea, I mean to say. What? " And so (yawn) it will go on, (snore) believe me. Meanwhile, just to show that there is untiring progress and unceasing watchfulness of the interests of civil avia- tion, a perfectly amazing statement which was not, as it should have been, greeted with roars of merriment, was made in the House of Commons a few days back, in answer to a question. " Air liners of the Heracles class employed on the Empire Air Services are to be replaced by more up-to- date aircraft as soon as these can be made available." Not a smile from the House, which has heard much the same lamentable story three or four times within the past four or five years, only in those days it was proposed to withdraw this class of aeroplane, even from the shorter European services as a type which had done magnificent work in its day but was now obsolete. All things considered this announcement in Parliament is roughly equivalent to an announcement to-day in that place, that it has been decided to withdraw Stevenson's Rocket from the London-Glasgow run as soon as more up-to-date engines are available. Now about the availability of aircraft, the lack of which has apparently forced Imperials to employ the reliable but
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