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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1163.PDF
FLIGHT, 24 August 1961 SPORT AND BUSINESS 265 Private View BY P.P.O. IN most forms of sport or pleasure, as in many people's lives,there exists a bogy—something which, if you are wise, you don'ttalk about too much (and if possible ignore) but which, unless conquered or exorcised, can have a very serious effect on one'senjoyment or even participation in one's favourite amusement. If you go sailing where the salt breezes blow, you will know thatthe bogy of all yachtsmen is seasickness. If you ride horses, it may be hay fever, or a sore skin in tender parts. If you garden, it isprobably backache. These things have to be beaten or they will beat you. The same applies to flying. Here the bogy is unquestionably thelaw. Do you realize, gentle reader, that if you take off on a fine summer's afternoon from, say, Fair Oaks to Shoreham for a bathe,arrive there and fly back later without incident, you have broken the law unless (and here I quote) "immediately before your aircraftflew you examined the current reports and forecasts of the weather conditions on the proposed flight-path, being reports and forecastswhich it was reasonably practical for you to obtain in order to determine whether instrument meteorological conditions prevailedor were likely to prevail during any part of the flight" ? For failing to do this, you may be fined up to £200, and, let it benoted, it would not be enough to get a forecast at Shoreham, or even to 'phone Fair Oaks for an "actual" there. You must alsocheck the weather as far as reasonably practicable on the proposed flight-path, checking at, say, Tangmere, Gatwick, Redhill andWisley. It would also be wise to telephone Uxbridge for an "appre- ciation" of the weather conditions for the next 24 hours. All thiswill probably take about 45 minutes and cost a few shillings in telephone calls, but you will be observing the law. Or suppose that if while on a flight from, say, Portsmouth toCoventry, having dutifully filed your flight plan and got all the weather reports (in about 60 minutes), you discover that owing toweather, or shortage of petrol, or even a wish for a cup of tea, you want to drop in at Panshanger on the way. If you unfortunatelyforget to 'phone Coventry to placate the air traffic controller, and he reports you to the Ministry of Aviation, you will probably findyourself in court, charged with "having failed to satisfy yourself before the aircraft took off that a flight from Portsmouth toCoventry could safely be made." Maximum penalty, £200 again. Naturally, anyone in his senses would think this far-fetched.Even if ATC at Coventry did report you in such circumstances to the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry would surely be content witha warning letter? Not so, I am afraid. It appears that the Ministry has no discretion in this matter. It must forward all cases directto the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will assume, of course, that you must have committed a shocking crime, or the Ministrywould not have sent the case to him. And so on ... all very sad, and liable to have a somewhat disturbing effect on the mind of theprivate pilot. What can we do to exorcise this particular bogy of sportingflying ? Ignore it if we can, and when we can't, do what the yachtsman does with his seasickness, make a joke of it.• * * This summer has seen a great increase in Continental air touring, but nothing to what is likely to come in the near future. The pleasures and advantages of using an aeroplane to visit France,Holland. Belgium or Italy are so great that, once you have done it, to go by tram or motor car will seem like going back into the darkages. I have chosen these four countries in particular because they have all managed to develop a happy informality in their relationswith private fliers. You come across evidence that Customs and regulations exist, but you are made to feel that you are not onlywelcome but needed; and if by chance you do happen to go to the wrong place, or offend against some regulation, it is treated as asimple mistake and not a heinous crime. In Germany I am not so happy. Rub the German official up thewrong way and he can turn quite nasty. In Spain, too, there is a feeling that underneath the exquisite manners there may be troublebrewing if you don't know the right people. But what an oppor- tunity exists for someone to produce an air touring guide that willtell us all we want to know—not only the regulations and details of the airfields, but the names of good hotels, where you can get thebest bathing, or play golf if you wish, the beauty spots and places of interest which can be viewed from the air as well as from the ground. Earlier this year I went to see the chateaux on the Loire, stayingat the ancient French town of Blois and renting a car for a week. A delightful holiday; but an air touring guide could have saved us alot of time, and probably enabled us to see more and do more than we did. Such a guide could not really be compiled by studying onlyguide-books, but would depend on the reports which air tourists could send in of their personal experiences. Whether just now thepossible circulation would justify the expense is another matter, but it would be of great and increasing value, so here's hoping thatsomeone will start compiling it now. * * • Taking the opportunity at the recent Coventry meeting of discuss-ing this and that with our overseas friends, particularly those from France and America, I was struck by their surprise that we donot seem to produce in this country the numbers of new or experi- mental light aircraft that we see so plentifully at the RSA rally inFrance and read about in the American magazines. "Have you Englishmen lost your inventiveness and enterprise ?" is the unspokenquestion they seem to ask. "Or are you doing so well out of fat 'cost plus' Government contracts that none of you is inclined toexert himself to help develop a new industry?" Naturally, they don't mind very much if we are going to be content to import allour private aeroplanes, and let the Commonwealth and world markets go. Well, that is our own fault and nobody else's. It isdifficult to explain all our troubles, and in any case one doesn't like to wash family dirty linen in public. But I wonder how the excitableand enthusiastic Gaul would react if he came up against some of our ARB or Ministry boys? This business of strangling smallaviation enterprises at birth, discouraging everyone who shows enterprise and ingenuity, and doing nothing to help, is going toput the British light aeroplane industry miles behind its competitors, even when it does finally come to life. The present set-up andmethods are such that costs and overheads are more than any small industry can stand. Personal encouragement or discouragement isa psychological matter, but one which can make all the difference between success and failure. Athlete Martin Hyman is to pilot the manpowered aircraft being developed by a Southampton University postgraduate group in an attempt to win the Kremer Prize. At Lasham, he has been receiving gliding tuition from resident instructor John Everitt During a recent German demonstration tour the Aermacchi-Lockheed 60 was flown by Mr Claus Kuehl (left), manager of Deutsche Taxiflug, at Mannheim Airport. Mr Kuehl is here pictured with Macchi pilot Col Franco Fatigati (centre) and Mr Mono Ziegler
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