ATLANTIC AIR FLIGHTS

Evening Star, Issue 19892, 14 June 1928, Page 1

ATLANTIC AIR FLIGHTS

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE “ If life inevitably had to bo sacrificed to bring aviation where it -s, and still more life will be sacrificed in the very search for safety,” says tho London ‘ Evening News,’ “so with advancing speed. That too, will take its toll. But there is nothing to he got out of squandering life, and this dare-devil Atlantic adventuring, fascinating though it is, has gone far enough. “ When it is reasonably sure that a machine can fly 3,000 miles over land without halting; when a machine is contrived that has at least an even chance of getting through Atlantic gales, rain, snow, and hail—then the time will have arrived for our gallant Hinchcliffes _to tackle the job witn some regularity.” “We do not believe that this exceptional degree of risk affords any good reason for attempting to prohibit further East-to-West ventures,” states the ‘Yorkshire Post.’ “We have always maintained that a man—or a woman—who takes adventurous risks with open ej’es must be allowed to do so. “ Only through such freedom for the most daring adventures is progress achieved; and to would-be pioneers the opportunity of honour cannot be withheld, oveiUthough in some cases an admixture of commercial motive may be present, • “ This admixture is never in itself likely to drive aiijone to fly the Atlantic. But, though we need not think of controlling Atlantic flights, we must sharply distinguish all such superlatively hazardous attempts from those less spectacular achievements in longdistance. overland Hying on which tho practical progress of aviation largely depends. “ Wo need not allow the tragedy of Captain Hinchliffe to cast out from our minds tho achievement of Mr Hinkler Successful flying of this kind really is evidence of increased safety in the air. The tragic loss of the Endeavour should not be taken to imply any evidence to the contrary. Such a disaster has not tho slightest hearing on ordinary aviation—any more than an accident to Captain "Malcolm Campbell on Dayton Beach last month would have meant chat motoring had become more dangerous on English roads.” “ Whatever the end of the adventure,” asserts ‘.lie ‘ Daily News,’ “ nothing can diminish the courage which attempts it. Compared with it, the courage of the old adventurers scorns a dull thing Tho old Norsemen in their dragon ships, who pushed their sturdy way through the icy northern seas; Hanno’s Phoenicians listening horror-struck in their galleys to the sound of the tom-toms, while tho watchfires flared in tho dark African night; the iron-hearted Spanish Crusaders marching indomitably in their steel armour through the South American forests—these were brave men; they fronted with a kind of bull courage dangers of tho real nature and magnitude of which they knew almost nothing. “They faced fearlessly the tenors of the unknown, and went on. But these adventurers knew |>cifcctl.y well the tremendous risks they wore courting. They could calculate tho various chances ot disaster with which they would be inevitably threatened, and still they wont on. Is it certain that the courage which knows and yet dares is a less bright and shining tiling than the coinage, wonderful as it. may lie, which dares, in part at any rale, simply because it does not- know?

“It is easy to •’enclemn these adventurers as fools and madmen. In all adventures in every field ■ there is a strain of madness or of what seems such to the unadventurous, and when they fail they arc so judged History is strewn with the half-forgotten memories of these failures, and these in turn are but a detachament of the vast army of those who have tried and failed and been forgotten altogether. “ Yet there is a virtue even in those failures; the spirit which made them try lives after them. It is alive to-day in these delicate women who. lace fearlessly the perils of the air—there are at least five who have already made themselves names in the story; who might have lived at ease, simply enjoying the pleasures which modern civilisation offers them in’.such abundance, and who flung deliberately all, away to go out and pluck the very beard of Death in strange perilous quest?.. One may call what hard names one likes the spirit which moves men and women to these things. When it dies out, if ever it does, something will be gone out of life; something perhaps which, once if is gone, will -he found to have given lifelialf its savour and half its value.”

“ Experience . has amply shown that tho Atlantic flight is a gamble wath death even in the most favourable circumstances,” is the view of the ‘Daily Telegraph.’ “The judgment of the circumstances should rest not only with the eager spirit confident of success, but with those who will weigh carefully all that is likely to operate for or against success. “ Some day the Atlantic flight will be as commonplace as that across tiro English Channel. The attainment ot that end will call for courage and skill, but it must be courage and skill utilised to the best possible advantage and with every reasonable safeguard. To omit such safeguards does nothing to promote, civil aviation. On the contrary, it wastes valuable lives and experience, to say nothing of diminishing public, confidence in the aeroplane as a means of transport.”