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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0457.PDF
MARCH 27TH, 1947 FLIGHT CORRESPONDENCE The Editor does not hold himsetj responsible for the views expressed by correspondents. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN Conflicting Casualty Figures T HAVE read that it is intended to place in Westminster•*• Abbey a Roll of Honour containing the names o: 1,500 pilots of Fighter Command who died in combat-between July10th and October 31st, 1940. The Stationery Office booklet "The Battle of Britain," published in April, 1941, quotescasualties at 375. Could any of your readers comment on t: ~se apparentlydissimilar figures? F. J. SEWARD. AIR ACCIDENTS The Question of Comparisons -I N view of the number of aircraft accidents in recent weeksand of the correspondence on the subject that has ensued in your columns, may I be permitted a little of your valuablespace in which to express a few thoughts and suggestions upon one aspect that does not seem to have received the seriousconsideration which it appears to deserve? Surely it would be in the interests of all those in aviation tosee that some sort of temporary board is set up " forthwith " to investigate from every conceivable angle all the availablefacts and figures of accidents to all forms of land, sea and air transport, and thence by careful computation and unbiaseddiscussion eventually arrive at some true criterion of accident risks by. which all those forms of transport can be compared intrue perspective? I think a word or two here would not be out of place con-cerning the so-called "bogy" of passenger-mileage fatality rates about which a number of dogmatic statements have beenmade. The truth, as so often happens, appears to lie some- where between the extremes so often stated, i.e., the very factthat practically no risk of accident prevails between the actual operations of taking-off and landing is surely one of thegreat arguments in favour of flying? The same cannot be said of ships and trains over great distances where accident riskis directly proportional to the distance travelled. May I end, therefore, in hoping that the day will dawn whenthe Press and thence the public will eventually get into per- spective the 500 deaths and 17,000 injured a month on theroads of little England alone, as compared with the few sensa- tional air crashes that occasionally occur anywhere from ITongKong to Timbuctoo and which, of course, never fail to scream their way across the front page headlines, while road deathsoccur with such monotonous regularity that they don't even make good enough news for the bottom right-hand corner ofthe last page ! If the Press must give such prominence to air crashes, I revel to think of the result if they could be madeto treat likewise road accidents for the whole world. That would shake 'em. Just imagine the headline: With acknow-ledgments to Titanines: "Wouldn't it look grand? " D. S. F. WINSLAND. THE PRIVATE FLYER Suggested Regulation Criticized T^HE imposition of new regulations upon the private flyer-*• seems destined to be one of the proverbial last straws. They are made presumably in the interests of added safety,but they will add very little to safety. They seem generally- to-be welcomed by professional pilots, but even the excuse forthe imposition of these regulations is based on a fallacy. A private flyer does not make a habit of wandering aimlesslyaround busy airports in low visibility to the danger of pilots doing a G.C.A. He is just as concerned about his chances ofsurvival as any one else and generally speaking just as con- siderate for the rights of other air traffic as any professionalpilot, and considerably more so than some. I cannot, in many years of club flying, recollect a single case of collisionbetween a private aircraft and an airliner. This is agreed by our club president, who is a G.A.P.A.N. examiner and a "B"licence pilot of twenty years' standing, so that it does not seem that private pilots have been much of a menace to airlinetraffic. The suggested number of hours before obtaining an "A"licence makes the cost almost ridiculously expensive. Restric- tions over visibility in a climate such as this with frequent purely local deteriorations will often give rise to the situationwhere one sits idly on an airport covered with industrial haze of the most innocuous kind and unable to proceed into perlectflying weather a few miles away, or conversely unable to return home from perfect conditions into slight haze. A few dosesof this would convince the most enthusiastic pilot that it is quicker by bicycle and that his enthusiasm is misplaced. Again, the suggested use of radio seems to have been madeby someone completely out of touch with realities. Radio has always been too weighty for light aircraft and is now extremelyexpensive and probably almost unobtainable. And the club pilot has very little use for instruments except for an occasionalascent or descent through cloud or a trip over water on a hazy day. The remedy seems to me fairly simple. If and when theMinistry succeed in buying and maintaining in service enough airliners to cause frequent traffic at any of their (or our) ex-pensive airports, let them completely prohibit all flying within a certain safe and clearly specified airspace except under theirradio control. The penalty could be suspension of licence except under conditions of dire emergency which could boupheld on the spot. Any breaches of safety in the approach lanes to his airport can always be dealt with by an efficientcontroller Jjy the use of pyrotechnics and/or the King's English. We get enough half-baked anil useless regulations forceddown our throats in this year of " planned " grace, and I sub- mit that these suggestions are not in the interests of publicsafety or of flying, and should be most vigorously opposed by the clubs and light aircraft manufacturers concerned. If theMinistry wish to drive private flying from the skies, and make us all travel tamely in their giant airliners (which at presentthey seem singularly incapable of providing and organizing to the satisfaction of the travelling public), then by all means letus have a flood of regulations of this sort, The end will be inevitable aud not too long delayed, and the club and tinaircraft industry will have reaped trje benefit of a bit of singii larly useless and misplaced bureaucracy. I cannot close this letter without making the point that ifthe Air Ministry, basking in their usual peacetime complacency, could be made to realize that the wartime flying potential of anation does not by any means consist of combat pilots, the clubs would be getting far more richly deserved encourage-ment than they are at present. The tremendous and invaluable service done this nationby some hundreds of young and middle-aged men, all produced by the clubs, who went on to operations, instructional flyingand the ferrying which among other things materially helped to win the Battle of Britain, has not been very graciouslyacknowledged and has been all too quickly forgotten. This potential may not be there next time, thanl-s to a singularlyostrich-like and unintelligent attitude. D. K. N. EVANS. FORTHCOMING EVENTS Mar, 27th.—R.Ae.S.—Birmingham : " Historical Survey of the Aeroplane." Lord Brabazon of Tara, 7 p.m., Queen's College, Paradise Street. Mar. 27th.—Royal Aeronautical Soc. : " The War in the Ether," Air Vice- Marshal E. B. Addison, C.B., C.B.E. Mar. 28th.—London Transport (Central Buies) Flying Club. JJinner and Dance, Bridge House Hotel, London Bridge. ™ Mar. 29th.—Radio Controlled Models Soc. : Lecture and Demonstration. P. Hunt, Y.M.C.A., Peter St., Manchester. Mar. 30th.—Nimes Aero Club Rally, Nimes, France. April 7th.—Fair Oaks and Oxford Flying Clubs. Joint flying meeting, Kidlington airfield. April 7th.—United Services Flying Club. Flying meeting Elstree airfield. April 9th.—R.Ae.S.—Southampton : An address by E F. ReK, C.B.E., F.R.S., F.R.Ae.S. April 10th.—Royal Aeronautical Soc. " A Review of Production Difficulties in Relation to Aircraft Design." C. E. Fielding. April 12th.—British Interplanetary Society : " Cosmic Rays " Lionel Gilbert, A.R.C.S., B.Sc., Science Museum, South Kensington. April 15th.—R.Ae.S.—Bristol. Annual General Meeting. April 17th.—Royal Aeronautical Soc. " Testing Civil Aircraft "PA Hufton, M.Sc April 18 to 21st.—Aero Club of Spain, Madrid Air Rally. April 24th.—Royal Aeronautical Soc. : " The Risk of Fire, and Fire Pre- vention Methods," Dr. J. W. Drinkwater, B.Sc., D. Phil., and W. G. Glendening. May 1st.'—Royal Aeronautical Soc. : "The Development of the A.S. Type Gas Turbine," W. H. Lindsey, M.A., A.F.R.Ae.S. May 2nd.—R.Ae.S. Graduates and Students. " Flight Testing of Aircraft," W Humble.
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