INTERNATIONAL FLYING

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 153, 26 December 1918, Page 5

INTERNATIONAL FLYING

USING THE LESSONS OF WAR PROBLEMS TO BE DEALT WITH. CCNtTJO MtllDS ASSbCiAfiOlJ^-SOWIUGB*.) (At!ST!tAlr«MfflW BMMITO CA»W ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 23rd December. ' hotd W*ir (whose resignation from the position of Air Minister was reported a few days ago), speaking »t Manchester, said that the best interests of civilisation would not be served by keeping civil aviation as a Government monopoly. The Government had drafted a scheme for an International Air Board. This scheme would bo submitted to the Allies, and, if approved, an international aar conference would be held in a few months' time to organise international flying. Within five years the navigation of the aeroplane in. bad weather ought to be as easy as steering a> ship in similar circumstances. Already we had aeroplanes able to climb ten thousand feet, travel a hundred miles per hour, make a non-stop journey of 1200 miles, and alight oil the !■ sea and rise again with a full load. A new and tremendous industry was about to be created out of the Eoyal Air Force, which, trained and developed in war, would put the lessons it had learnt into practice for the purposes of peace and civilisation. The Air Force, which included 285 officers and 1853 men in August, 1914, now numbered 30,000 officers, 260,000 men, and 30,000 women and boys. The chief problems for the immediate future would be severe navigational training, the creation of an energetic meteorological service, the adoption of improved wireless telegraphy and telephony, and the adoption of a first-class system of day and night landing-places and aerodromes. These things -wonld cost a lot of money, but would consummate and justify the work of the men who had died.