CIVIL AVIATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 18, 22 January 1937, Page 9

CIVIL AVIATION

BRITISH PROPOSALS

CENTRAL JUNCTION i

A WIDE COVERAGE -j (Biiti:-li Official Wireless.) U Ji'GBY, January 20. The committee sppointed in the summer of 1933, with Sir Henry Maybury as chairman, to consider the development o£ civil aviation in the United Kingdom, has presented its report. The main recommendation is a plan for the organisation of an experimental system of air services between large centres of population widely separated. The system would work to and from a central junction. This proposal is named the "junction aerodrome scheme." The committee also proposed that tf possible a single company should operate the services on the junction routes for a minimum period of Ave years, and, with the concurrence of the Postmaster-General, advocated the establishment of regular night airmail services to some of the termini of these routes. The experiment is intended to establish whether, within the restricted area of the United Kingdom, commercial air services can be made profitable without direct subsidy if operated with regularity both in daylight and in darkness. The "junction aerodrome scheme" provides for a junction in the Man-chester-Liverpool area with services operated to and from the following areas:—First London, second South-ampton-Portsmouth, third Bristol, fourth Belfast, fifth Glasgow-Edin-burgh, and sixth Newcastle. The operational distance of these routes worked through the central junction would be 960 miles, as compared with a route milage of 2900 if direct services were provided between all the centres mentioned. Services operated under the scheme would serve an aggregate population of 14,000,000, or about one-third of the total population of the United Kingdom, and this should produce a high local factor by means of which it might be found possible to charge fares as low as 3Jd per passenger mile. The scheme, of course, does not exclude the provision of direc' non-stop services wherever sufficient demand exists. The committee suggests that the Government's contribution to development can most suitably take the form I of providing a full national service of | radio aids to safety and navigation with traffic control facilities on the | main routes. The committee considers all radio facilities and comprehensive air traffic control organisation adequate to ensure the safety and reliability of air communication at all times in the United Kingdom should be provided, maintained, and operated by the Government. This should be combined with a meteorological organisation immediately concerned with internal flying. The capital cost, of carrying out these recommendations is anticipated to be about £320,000 and the total annual cost about £240,000, of which about £40,000 is already being incurred or in prospect.