AVIATION PROSPECTS.

Evening Star, Issue 19637, 17 August 1927, Page 6

AVIATION PROSPECTS.

“Tin-: greatest air race ol' all time ” is how San Francisco describes the flight over 2,400 miles of ocean, from the Golden Gate to Honolulu, for a prize of £7,000, on which nine aeroplanes wore to start yesterday. The Americans arc great phrase-makers, and if “ all time ” moans all time to date this one may stand. It would sound loss impressive, but would not bo less true, to call it the first air race to date over such a distance. There have been longer flights, but they have not been races. The number of entries makes another distinction of this adventure. Four machines took part in the American service flight which was made round the world in 1924, and only two got back. Tlio “Hawaii hop,” to fpiotc another American name for the latest test of aircraft, will not he a new triumph when it is made. Lieutenants Maitland and Hegenberger performed it as a service test a few months ago. There was no £7,000 prize for them. Their flight was all in the day’s work. The appeal of this race is to the sporting sense, and already it has provided thrills more than any of its participants could have wished for.

Aviation has made groat conquests, but it is not yet safe. The boom that has been given to it in recent weeks by the feats of Lindbergh, Chamberlin, and Byrd, for whom the track had been blazed by British airmen, has not been without its increased crop of iatalitics. The mere preparations lor this Hawaiian race had their price in three planes smashed and three intending competitors killed. Taking the world over, our cables have chronicled eleven deaths of airmen since this month began. The United States Air Force, though it did not organise the flight, is taking all the precautions possible lor the safety of the present contestants. It had need to do so, since the spirit of adventure, allied with a mercenary, object, may be unaccompanied by oil her experience or discretion. Some of the competitors would bo lucky, it was said, if they got across San Francisco Bay. Destroyers have been despatched to keep watch at various points ol the long route, which is more than the British Air Force does for nnolficial flyers, and contact will be kept with them as far as possible by wireless. This provision was invaluable to Maitland and Hegenberger on their flight. The most notable new instrumentality for navigation tested on that occasion, it was stated, was the new radio beacon which guided the plane. This beacon sends out radio waves from land to he intercepted by a receiving apparatus on tbo plane, the rays broadening in a band at the rate of one and one-half miles for every hundred miles from the source. So, to take the facts from a "War Department statement, Lieutenant Hegenberger had only to “tune in oit the beacon wave length of 1,020 metres and keep the plane beaded in the course upon which the Morse letter T was beard at about three-second intervals.” To the north of the T zone was an N zone, and to the south an A zone, which would indicate deviation from the course. A similar beam was sent out from the Hawaiian station, and the two sets of signals nearly overlapped. Commander Byrd noted it as a wonderful thing, when lie was lost in the fog over the Atlantic, that he was able to got his bearings by wireless communication with ships which were also in fogs. Hawaii may soon bo an easy tlight for Americans in search of new sensations. At least one of the participants in this race has the ambition of reaching New Zealand via Australia by the air. A larger question which arises is that of the commercial possibilities of long-distance aviation. Three times now the Atlantic has been crossed by a dirigible, in addition to the passages that have been made by heavier than air machines. Air travel will be expensive for a long while to come, but in many circumstances it will be worth the expense. If it could be made safer it might soon be cheapened. It takes but 1 per cent, as much capital, it has been said, to develop a landing field and signal-light an air route over land as it takes to develop a railway. The first thing that, would he needed to make air travel more safe over the Atlantic, for example, would bo an artificial “ floating island,” which is not impracticable, to serve as a. halfway station and distress port. Its cost would he heavy; but, the question has been asked, what do docks for oceangoing steamers, harbor dredging, and maintenance cost? It is insecurity which makes the worst disadvantage of aviation. While fatalities aro as frequent still continue to be, long distance firing will bo a matter for heroes more than for ordinary people.