FUTURE IN THE AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1936, Page 12

FUTURE IN THE AIR

QUESTION OF CONTROL

AERO CLUB ADVOCACY

AIR MINISTRY URGED

Speaking at Blenheim a few clays ago the Minister of Transport (the Hon. R. Sempie) declared that aviation had definitely come to stay, and must grow in importance, both for commercial and defence purposes. New Zealand required an up-to-date air force as the only scientific method of defence against invasion, and consequently all the encouragement in the world should be given to aviation. Landing grounds should be constructed everywhere. To those who have been and are working' for the advancement of aviation, and particularly for the reorganisation of control without which substantial progress is not possible, the remarks of the Minister of Transport were indeed heartening, particularly as they come hard on the heels of an assurance given by the Minister of Defence and Postmaster-General (the Hon. F. Jones), who at Palmerston North, at the opening of the Union Airways Service, referred to the disjointed state of control that has been allowed to develop, and said: For instance, the issuing of certificates of airworthiness of aeroplanes I * and the examination and licensing of pilots comes under the Defence Department. The granting of licences to operate air services is the concern of the Transport Department. Matters connected with landing grounds and aerodromes are dealt with by the Public Works Department, whilst the Scientific and Industrial Research Department attends to all meteorological services. On the wireless side the Post and Telegraph Department is best fitted to install apparatus for communication between the ground and aeroplanes. He might have added some information regarding the amount of co-opera-tion, or lack of co-operation, between these Departments on matters of aviation, but he did not. However, the concern about some form of unified control is spreading. Ministers have commented upon it, the Wellington Chamber of Commerce has discussed the advisability of ' the Government establishing an Air Ministry, and the New Zealand Aero Club, which is not itself directly concerned about an Air Ministry, but wants aviation helped instead of hindered, keeps hammering away, and has asked.the Government to receive a deputation on the subject early next week. The club, representing all the aero clubs of the Dominion, has for long been of the opinion that only by the adoption of some unified system of control, patterned on the highly successful British Air Ministry, and encompassing both civil and defence flying, can aviation in this country be placed upon a sound basis, and I the many technical ■ problems—of ground organisation, communication, radio guidance and navigation, and meteorology which are common to both civil and defence flying—be met and solved for the advancement of both. TEN POINTS OF ARGUMENT. Recently there were published in a special article in "The Post" ten points in support of the contention that only by unified control can sound development at reasonable cost be achieved, and in view of the present interest in the matter the arguments are again set out:— 1. The Air Force has no more direct relation to the Army than has the Navy. Though in actual operation it must co-ordinate with both Army and Navy, neither of these arms of defence can co-operate in the greater part of aviation, the highly-specialised work of ground organisation, meteorology, communication, etc., which essentially must precede and continually work in with the actual flying operations. 2. In the event of emergency, civil aircraft, personnel, and facilities must merge immediately with Air Force activities, and will function effectively under a continued rather than a changed control. 3. To a large degree tho Air Force is directly dependent on civil aviation. Tho ground organisation, of both branches is inseparable without duplication, overlapping, and waste Ground organisation, generally speaking, serves both equally. Inevitably it is expensive, without duplication. 4. The placing of civil aviation under a department other than one whose whole function it is to adminster aviation means that it will remain a sideline of a department, and will therefore still be handicapped as at present. ■ 5. The control of civil aviation requires technical administration; to place it in' hands other than technical is to repeat the errors that have been made when the Air Force and civil aviation have been under Army control. 6. Civil aviation requires the backing during its developmental stages of a constructive department, and not of a purely administrative department that is only "capable of ruling by restrictive regulation. 7. The most experienced personnel who are retired from the Air Force at a comparatively early" age become available for administrative duties in civil aviation. " 8. Only a part of the functions of the Air Force are military duties in th/5 accepted sense of the term, the greater part of its work consisting in such civil occupations as inspection of aircraft and equipment, inspection of aerodromes, repair of aircraft, photographic surveys, etc.;- for eyery potential combatant member of the force at least four are non-combatant. 9. To separate the Air Force from civil aviation weakens both, benefits neither, and puts further into the future the time when a single department will be available to advise the Government on all air matters. 10 Civil aviation is highly competitive with all other forms of transport, and as it recognises none of the boundaries circumscribing the use of other forms of transport it cannot be coordinated with them without its development being retarded and stultified.