FLYING IN ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 15, 19 January 1931, Page 3

FLYING IN ENGLAND.

MANY PRIVATE CLUBS.

BOON OF CHEAPER 'PLANES

GERMAN TYPE SELLING AT £172.

LONDON, November 6,

In spite of a temporary slackness in production amongst civil aircraft manufacturers—who always have a lean time in the winter months —and a heavier list of R.A.F. deaths (particularly in training 'planes, the pilots or which are not allowed to use- the automatic slots), flying is definitely on the upgrade in England.

Flying is the sport of this age, and its growing popularity may well be gauged from figures supplied by the private flying clubs about London. Hanworth Club, the now club opened up by National Flying Services only a year ago close to Heston Air Park, has already a membership of 1030, growing weekly. Of these 169 have qualified for their A licenses—the A license is for private flying, and the B for commercial —including 51 in the last three months; At Heston, at Brooklands, at Stag Lane, and at Croydon the story is the eame. Any great tragedy in the air is followed by an increased number of applicants for membership, though not from among married men. Tragedies in the air, such at (.' ii Meopham crash, the RlOl disaster, and all these R.A.F. training crashes recently, only make the young single men eager to join and learn. But the wives think differently, and there is always a fal!ing-off among the married men.

Women Eager. Young women are still amongst those most eager to take up flying, though these include many who simply take a few lessons for the "thrill," and, finding, there is more thrill in talking about flying than in the actual performance of that somewhat mundane and much overwritten accomplishment, soon drop it and take up something else —ice-skat-ing, maybe, or a new dog. Hanworth's youngest pilot is a boy of 16, and the oldest "pupil" is Mr. Griffith Brewer, president of the British Institution of Patent Agents, who is more than 60. More women attend the technical classes than men, and more doctors take up flying as a hobby than any other professional class. At Heston the London Stock Exchange has a club of its own, as a sort of side-line to the general flying school. The De Havilland School %t Flying, which has been established for ten years, has had to move out to Hatfield, the historic Hertfordshire village where Queen Elizabeth spent her girlhood. Here most of the pilots for the Royal Air Force reserve are trained. More than 100 of these have been turned out this year. The De Havilland School was for nine years at. Stag Lane, but that aerodrome, with 50 or 60 private owners who garage machines there, the London Aeroplane Club with 220 fully' qualified pilots, all anxious to fly, and all the test flying of the De Havilland works, were becoming too dangerously overcrowded.

In spite of the increase in the number of pilots, the increase in the nulnber of owner-pilots is really very slow. If aircraft manufacturers do not bring out new models their sales fall off alarmingly. There arc some makes, of course, for which there is always a market — the übiquitous Moth, for instance. But there are others which appeal to a very limited field, to persons of wealth and leisure, with sufficient airmindedness to own a. machine or two. Amongst these is the Puss Moth, which sells in this country at £1000. But'the number of people who can afford to spend £1000 on an aeroplane, be it ever so good, and pay for ground engineering, garaging, petrol, and upkeep in general (including pretty stiff insurance both for themselves and for the aircraft) is strictly limited.

The Pues Moth came out at an opportune time, and has proved a splendidly serviceable machine. But it found its market chiefly among those who scrapped Moths to buy Puss Moths, and this market was limited. The time for general buying of a saloon car of the air is not yet arrived, and if this firm did not bring out a new model yearly it could not continue to employ nearly au many as it does.

Cheaper Models. De Havillands are said to be concentrating now on a cheap low-wing open monoplane to counteract the influence of the Kleinin, which, selling at less than £400, has bceu popular in England. In these clays of economy the best stimulus to flying is the production of cheaper machines, not dearer ones euch as the Puss Moth, is, and the De Havilland Company is now on sound lines. Details of this new monoplane are not yet available, one hears only whispers of it—whispers that are strengthened by the latest news from Germany, where a light aeroplane with a 20 h.p. engine is now on the market for £172. Of course, a small lowpowered machine of this type is fit only for training and for lesser journeys, but it will be a _ very valuable influence in the promotion of flying. The De Havilland monoplane will not be anything like as low-powered as this German production. Probably it will sell somewhere round £400. It ought to be available for next English summer, and will be seen in the Dominions almost as quickly.