FLYING IS SAFE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 93, 21 April 1933, Page 9

FLYING IS SAFE

PILOTS AND RECORDS

THE REGULAR SERVICES

Nine senior pilots of Imperial Airways have spent between them no less than 66,600 hours'' at tho controls of aeroplanes. This amazing total is equal to 2775 days and nights, or 7 years 7J months. In that thno they havo covered an aggregate of approximately 6,500,000 miles, equivalent to 27 journeys to the moon or 260 flights round the world at the Equator. And each of these men is still pursuing his vocation most days of tho week, guiding tho big airliners with tho regularity and clockwork precision of the most carefully nursed express trains. The pilots and flying times'are as follows:—Dismore 6600, Horsey 6150, Jones 8400, Olley 10,050, Perry- 6700, Kogei-s 7100, Walters 6750, Wilcoekson 7300, Youoll 7550. v Unfortunately one does not hear enough of the achievements of these splendid pilots, who possess between them a sum of experience and deep knowledge of airmanship that is not surpassed by any body of aviators in the world. Men and women who dash about the world on spectacular sporting flights—and worthy of respect and admiration they are—get plenty of public notice and laudation. The work of the military pilot still wears an air of romance, but these men who ply regularly without fuss over the air routes and are responsible for the safe conduct of the airliners remain comparatively unknown and their achievements are rarely chronicled. This relative neglect is a pity, not because the airline pilots themselves crave publicity, but because _in their superb records of service resides the best possible proof of . the inherent safety of aviation. Flying in all sorts of weather —bad, good, and indifferent —to time-table is very different from the more or less desultory fine-weather flying of most amateur pilots, and imposes a vastly greater strain on the individual, easy to handle though the modern British air transport aeroplanes may be. . Gordon. Olley, the doyen of British commercial pilots, has himself flown a million miles in the piolt's seat. Nowadays he is in charge of the special charter section of Imperial Airways, and is constantly making long and urgent journeys to all parts of Europe and frequently beyond. A round-faced, cherubic little man, he carries his twelve years of commercial flying very easily; like all of his fellows, he is completely imperturbable and radiates an atmosphere of confidence. Statistics like these are well worth citing in any argument about the safety, or the perils, of flying. They pay liigh tribute to the skill of the airmen and at the same time provide indisputable evidence of the security afforded by the various types of British airliners that they havo flown during their long and varied careers.