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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1033.PDF
APRIL IT, 1940 527 AIR TRANSPORT in WAR Another Contributor Expresses the Doubt and Disillusionment Felt by Many in Viezv of Recent Events By " HYPERMETROPIA' GREAT and growing is the disappointment at SirKingley Wood's brief reference to British airtransport in his speech on the Air Estimates on March 7. Because, in reply to a question a week or two previously, he had said that he would pronounce certain plans for civil aviation, transport-minded citizens had looked for something positive. It could not possibly be, they argued, that the Govern- ment would let Britain fall into the back rank of air trans- port during a war which was largely economic and would probably be long. Six months of air-line suppression was, perhaps, understandable at the start of the war when no- body could see how the air warfare would develop. But now things had begun to take shape and the Air Minister was going to give us a plan for air-line operation and de- velopment, and, no doubt, action would be taken on it immediately. Well, all that we have been promised is a Civil Aviation Advisory Committee and a small body of experts to keep abreast of technical improvements on the civil side in other countries so as to safeguard British commercial aviation after the war. That is the prospect to-day of the British merchant air service apart from two main Imperial routes. It is a bitter disappointment. It suggests a faded sense of proportion and values—a common product of war, but a dangerous thing in this modern type of warfare, which depends so vitally upon trade and communications. Can we dare, in a serious time like the present, to drop behind in air-line operation? Are not the airways the essential complement to our shipping services in maintain- ing our trade with the Empire and non-British countries? Trade must go on, must be developed, in competition with the enemy or not, according to the part of the world concerned. In Europe the very closest commercial rela- tions are needed with the neutral states in the north-west and the south-east. To make it possible for them to trade with the democracies we must offer every advantage of quick communication. To counteract false propaganda we must show the flag and the British viewpoint in these coun- tries. Our newspapers must be delivered there promptly, our diplomatic and trade missions and representatives must be able to travel to and fro between London and the neutral states by fast daily air services—flying the British air en sign. Newspapers to Europe A British visitor who arrived in a Balkan capital theother day carrying a copy of The Times, three days old, was besieged by his local countrymen for a glance at the" latest news," because our papers normally take four days to get there; the German morning papers arrive the sameday by the German air line. Is this not a deplorable admis- sion? At present we have a daily British service to Paris, a weekly service to Scandinavia. We hope to overcome the difficulties which are preventing us from operating to Lis- bon and to connect with the American clipper service across the North Atlantic. The Southern Europe and Mediter- ranean routes are available to us but are not being used except for the main Empire line. These routes are of the wry greatest significance to British interests, especially at the present time, and will probably become vital in the ture. From a strategic point of view, from a prestige Point of view, and from the point of view of trade, the airway to the south-east—and beyond Europe to the Turkish capital, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan—is of para- mount importance, and everyone who has watched recent happenings and tendencies with the smallest glimmer of intelligence realises the fact. Is it cost that stands in the way of operating a daily south-eastern service? The cost is negligible compared with the intrinsic value of the air lines to the British cause, compared with other expenditures which are taken in our stride. What is the whole Imperial Airways subsidy for a year compared with the cost of one week's R.A.F. activity ? Is it the want of suitable aircraft? No. Cannot productive capacity and materials be released to produce a suitable type in numbers? The productive effort needed to make a score or two of suitable liners is utterly negligible provided a type is chosen (and it can be) which is already in production. Is it a question of crews? No; we have trained crews who are not of the age that the R.A.F. needs, who want the work, and who ought to be kept in real air-line practice. The immediate need is shipping and air communications to European neutral capitals and trade centres. The sound policy, the longer view, whether this is to be a three- year war or a seven-year war, is steady air-line develop- ment on a world scale and even for this the necessary effort and expenditure are relatively small and must not be treated from the outset as impossible bars to progress. That Advisory Committee No advisory committee can hope to keep us abreast of contemporary advancement on American and other air lines. Continuous experience of actual construction and a steady programme of technical development are the only path to progress. It took years to build up the Empire routes, with their ground organisation, weather and radio services. It will take years to build up a British South Atlantic service. France manfully maintains her South Atlantic operations and Italy is developing hers. What hope can Britain have of pushing herself in on the traffic when others have been working the lines for half a decade or more? If the flying and ground crews are allowed to be dispersed into the Air Force and into official communications duties it will take years to collect them again into a homogeneous merchant air service. Young men are not necessary for this work and we have a fine supply of trained commercial crews of more mature years in the Imperial Airways, British Airways and internal air-line organisations who should be kept together and put to constructive commercial work now. We possess, in fact, an invaluable nucleus of airway equipment and personnel for which there is no programme. If the merchant shipping services were in such an indefinite state after six months of war there would be an outcry, and yet the merchant service of the air must be and will be indispensable to the Empire's ultimate success in this great struggle. It is not nearly enough to maintain the Australian and African lines and to extend the former to New Zealand, as it is to be extended next month. Both flying-boat and landplane operations must be pushed ahead now, and the European neutrals, so sensitive to the infl- ences and efforts of both belligerent sides at this critical stage of the war, must be our first airline objective.- After is Too Late The stifling of all but a few principal internal airlines in the British Isles (and those almost all associated with the railway companies) is nothing short of a tragic suppres- sion of years of hard-earned progress. The most suitable of their hundred or more multi-engined aircraft are prob- ably to be impressed and will then more than likely remain largely idle. The remainder will be left on their hands.
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