BRITAIN IN AVIATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 9

BRITAIN IN AVIATION.

Views of New Chief of Ait League. ESSENTIAL TO EMPIRE. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) LOXDOX, June 10. "As an Empire, we have failed to take advantage of aviation.*' said Brigadier-General Percy Groves, who i has taken over the s-ecretary-general-ship of the Air League of the British | Empire. j "There has been too much talk of the J necessity of making immediate profits i from aviation. "This test did not apply ; n the eaiir days of the railways aDd other commuui'cations, and it should not be applied to j aviation, which is roost important for the opening up of uneaploitcd areas in j the Empire. I "Australia lias already found that air I communications powerfully stimulate j settlement, and that tar iines prevent ! settlers from feeling cut off from j civilisation."' In an interview published in the "Daily Telegraph," he said he must insir-t upon the importance of aviation to the Empire from the commercial, political, administative, and defence points of view. Britain's civil aviation was much behindhand compared with that of France, Germany, and the United States.

Brigadier-General Percy Robert Grovcj was air adviser to the British Ambassador, Pans, in connection with peace treaties, and British Air representative on the Permanent Advisory Commission to the League of Nations. After seeing active service as ar. observer and pilot during the war in France, the Dardanelles, and Egypt, be entered the Air Ministry Director of Flying Operations in 1918. He was British Air representative at the Peace Conference ir. 1919. after which he was transferred to th- Royal Air Force with the rank of Group-Captain, retiring in 1922 with the rank of Brigadier-General.