Supremacy in the Air.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 45, 5 February 1920, Page 5

Supremacy in the Air.

MUST BE BRITAIN’S AIM. WINGED TRADE CARRIERS. AND FLEETS OF FIGHTERS. ADDRESS BY GENERAL SYKES in»rwsu -Pmm ftixitatlon —Copyri*ht.l London, Feb. a. Major General Sykes delivered a lecture on Imperial air routes, to the Geographical Society, before a large gathering. including the Prince of Wales and official repre sentatives of the Dominions. General Sykes defined the routes as:— Egypt to India. Cairoa to Cape. India to Australia. England to Egypt. England to Canada. England to the M est Indies, via A General Sykes emphasise* the necessity of keeping a first-line fighting air force, always on a war footing. Military aviation however was circumscribed on the_ ground of finance, while civil aviation must never cease to expand. Each should co-operate, one for Impernl defence and the other as an instru meat for the devdopment of Imperial trade, which could be used if necessary as a great aerial reSC General Sykes hoped that before long, the air forces of the Empire would be welded into one force,, coordinated by an Imperial Air Staff. He was of the opinion that the principles of service and civil aviation experiments, applied equally to the Dominions as to the Mother Country. , General Sykes was of the °P\ nl °” that if the Empire air power both service and civiL were. developed and co-ordinated, our air supremacy might, in the future, be more valuable in assisting to maintain the world’s peace, than sea supremacy in the past. , F.vnmining the routes, he said, Egypt to India held out many advantages owing to the great saving in time, which was possible com pared to sea voyagffig. Similarly, Cairo. Baghdad, and South Africa offered potentialities which “ was impossible to assess. The long seaboard of the two islands of New Zealand seemed chosen by Nature for seaplanes. Tne practicability of Maha as an intermediate landing ground, was now being considered. General Sykes dwelt on the necessity of the Tost Office co-opreation. Air mails were the real foundation of the whole system on which the Imperial routes must be based. In order to compete successfully m commerce, aircraft must aim at completing the journey in one third oi the time taken by other transport. General Sykes added. ..that exeluding the Anglo-Australian flights machines of the principal firms, between May Ist and December 31st of last year, flew 503,000 miles and carried 64.000 passengers with only vivtoen accidents and involving o deaths. , He expressed the opinion that the future air policy of component parts of the Empire would be to keep in close touch with England in matters of common policy. Each of the dominions should have a small service and a large civil air fleet to meet its own strategic needs, and the Empire war organization should be able to concentrate quickly for its existence in case of need. The President. Sir Francis Younghusband, said that the Prince of Wales was doing Empire work of the greatest importance. He had been successfully endeavouring t ' put various parts of the Empire on good terms with each other. He had made himself a very “precious Empire asset” He hoped the Prmcv would learn from the lecture something as to how he might in future possibily go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa ana other parts of the Empire to open Parliaments, and to India to open the Durbars.—(Reuter and A. and N.Z.)