INVENTION OF AEROPLANE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 11

INVENTION OF AEROPLANE

Marks Further Stage in Evolution of Man

“T>Y the discovery of fire, man was enabled to withdraw from the protection of the jungle and use the new weapons which fire enabled him to mould . Man, from being the most hunted of animals, became the most feared hunter. Fire enabled him to mould iron and make weapons, and his mastery grew until it overshadowed the earth,” writes Flight-Lieutenant Ira Jones, D. 5.0., D.F.C., in his book ‘‘King of Air Fighters.” ‘‘The invention of the flying machine marks a. stage in the evolution of man comparable only with the invention of fire.

“As before, man is faced with extinction or survival on a plane infinitely higher in the scale than he has ever achieved. As before, he is mercilessly hunted and persecuted by the creations of his ow®. imaginative genius in the sciences of chemistry and physics. “As before, man is hemmed in by the confines of the jungles of nationalism, colour, race and hy economic harriers of greed. As before, the new inventions threaten his own destruction unless man conquers the ether. “The open spaces of the atmosphere beckon 'to man to overthrow the boundaries of countries. Flying is the means by which man will unite the

world. The aeroplane has given to man a third! eye. No longer does man hare the instincts of the hunter with its cunning and deceit brought about by the feeling of the unknown. As airman he sees an expanse covering so vast an area that his perspective and delineation of thought are carried into a new sphere of vision. Ask any pilot of a fast single-seater about his feelings on a crisp June morning at, say, 10,000 feet. “The exhilaration is something which can only be pathologically explained as seeing things whole instead of by bits and pieces, as the earthgound man does. Seeing things in ‘wholes,’ therefore, is seeing things afresh, stripped qf their false and illusory trimmings of relative perspective. “Who knows that by his conquest of the air, 'man has not destroyed all races, all colonies, all creeds, and all boundaries. The whole world is now united by atmosphere.”

Flight-Lieutenant Ira Jones makes this comment in recording the biography of the late Major Mick Mannock, V.C., in his book. Mannock is generally recognised to be- the most intrepid officer in the Air Force during the Great War. Few will doubt it after reading his amazing exploits.