AIR ROUTES AFTER THE WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 60, 11 March 1944, Page 4

AIR ROUTES AFTER THE WAR

'THOUGH there may be no immediate result from the visit to Australia and New Zealand of Viscount Knollys, chairman of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, who is now in Wellington to discuss post-war civil aviation with the Prime Minister, it is possible that the Jong-range effects will be considerable. Preliminary steps in the revival of air-borne traffic, so rudely shattered by the war, were taken at the conference between Mr. Curtin and Mr. Eraser at Canberra, but, while their consultations and decisions will have vital effects on aerial travel in this part of the world, they can only be carried to fruition as a link in the Empire or the international chain which must be forged when the bomber gives the right of way to the express and the transport plane. Before that day arrives the Empire will bo called upon to make up its mind whether it is to enter the field as a unit or is to form part of a world-encompassing plan of the Allied Nations, and whether its share of air traffic shall be carried out directly by the State or by private enterprise. Those questions will no doubt be among the most important to be discussed at this year's conference of Empire leaders, but not even that congress can come to a final decision until the plans and ambitions of the other nations are known.

So far as has been made known here, in Australia, or in Britain, no concrete proposals have yet been discussed. The possibilities were debated in the House of Commons a week ago, but nothing was contributed to indicate that decisive action, even direct consultation upon a unified plan, was contemplated. Earlier debates indicated that the Government had not lost sight of the probable revolutionary effects which the air will exert upon travel of the future, but certainly nothing was said officially to show that adequate attention is being given to this vital aspect of future trade and communications. It is taken for granted that the Axis nations will be excluded from any international planning of air routes, because participation would enable them to build up a huge war potential, so that on America, Russia and the Empire will fall the decision as to what part each is to take, whether the planning will be by agreement, or whether each or any of the three will take its own road—or its own skyways. The Soviet has planned, a definite policy, limited at the moment by the demands of war and of the vastness of its own demesne, but including in its long-range objectives Britain, America and China. The three great aircraft corporations in the United States and their subsidiaries have evolved the basis of a common policy and are now discussing the widening and strengthening of that policy, while the Chinese Government has declared its belief that a first-class civil aviation scheme is necessary for the development of the great republic.

Our Empire lags, although Parliamentary committees have discussed it in Britain, including one headed by Lord Brabazon and an informal committee headed by Mr. Ronald Tree, but nothing practical has been done. Control, operation and aircraft must be discussed, as part of the planning necessary to cover both the short-range policy of air transport for war and the long-term policy under which such fundamental questions as the extent to which peace services shall be internationalised, the various spheres of influence and the freedom of the air delimited. In the meantime America is out in front of the race with two enormous advantages. She is building up a network of wartime air routes all round the world, and her pilots are gaining the inestimable advantages of long experience, while British air and ground crews are learning little of the main trunk routes over which the commercial craft will later fly. The second advantage is that the Americans have, because of their tremendous resources, which they were not compelled to canalise into bombing and fighting units alone, as was Britain, developed the transport plane to a high degree of efficiency. Thus the Curtis Commando and the Douglas Skytrain medium-range transports are in very large-scale production, the Liberator long-range transport is in small-scale production, and a few Lockheed Constellations are being built. Production of the Douglas C 74, an outstanding large transocean transport, has begun, while plans are complete for new' big Boeing and Consolidated land plane transports and a Consolidated seaplane, and the Kaiser Hughes single-hull flying-boat weighing 180 tons is nearing completion. Against these Britain has to offer the Avro York, an adaptation of the splendid Lancaster, which will be very suitable for medium-range work in Europe and throughout the Empire, but which can only be constructed in limited numbers. A big Bristol for transocean work, a De Havilland transport, a Handley-Page freighter and a Short Saro 150-ton flying-boat have been planned, but as it takes four years from drawing board to production the first post-war generation of aircraft will be predominantly American. Britain has spent hundreds of millions in developing aircraft and airfields. She, and we, must look to it that whatever advantages can be •won from that expenditure in time of peace are fully exploited, and from that angle the visit of Lord Knollys is timely and of special importance.