N.Z. AERO CLUBS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 271, 31 October 1932, Page 11

N.Z. AERO CLUBS

CUTS IN SUBSIDIES RESTORATION TO BE ASKED. DEPUTATION TO WAIT ON. PRIME MINISTER. To urge that the Government should adopt a more vigorous aviation policy, and that it should reconsider the very severe cut it has made in subsidies to aero clubs, a deputation from the New Zealand Aero Club will wait on the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, next Wednesday. Other questions will be brought up, but the two mentioned will be the points mainly stressed by the deputation. The parlous state of the finances of the aerb clubs will probably be brought to the Government’s notice. Before any aero club started operations, the Canterbury Club asked the Government what subsidy would be given, and Cabinet brought down a scheme by which all approved clubs would receive a subsidy of £25 for every pupil trained to the A license standard, up to the number of 20 pupils for each club. The maximum subsidy for any club was thus £5OO. One of the first things to suffer from the Government’s economy moves was the aero club subsidy, and now the maximum number of pupils of any one elub subsidised is nine each year, and the subsidy on each is only £22 10/-. “It Is very doubtful if some of the clubs would offer have started ( had they known that the Government would cut their subsidies so hard, ” said the member of the executive of the Canterbury Club who gave these figures to a “Sun” reporter. “To the best of my knowledge thia is the lowest subsidy paid to its approved flying clubs by the Government of any part of the British Empire. “Practically all the clubs are operating at a loss, and are eating into the reserves created by the profits from art unions, for which they had other plans. It seems to me that the Government is guilty of a breach of faith.” The position 'in Great Britain, he said, was very different. The Government there in spite of the rigid economy measures put into force last year and this, was paying approved clubs £25 for each new A license, £lO for each war-time pilot who took out a new license, and £lO for every license renewed.

The maximum grant to any one club was £lsoo—more than seven times the New Zealand maximum. Further, the British Government subsidised the training of women pilots and of men older than 30, which the New Zealand Government would not do. The New Zealand Government’s attitude was that it would subsidise the training only of those pilots who could be useful to the Air Force. The British Government, realising the importance of air transport to the nation, encouraged everybody to learn to fly, irrespective of age or sex. The Government here had already taken a number of aero elub trained pilots into the Air Force, and had been saved the direct expense of their early training. According to figures collected by the Wellington Club, the nine clubs which were members of the New Zealand Aero Club showed a loss of offer £4600 on their last year’s working. The Canterbury Club showed a loss of £664. Admittedly flying had suffered from the slump, and when trade picked up there would be more training to be done, but it was doubtful if even then the clubs would be able to cover their working expenses without an increase in subsidies. , When considering the question of subsidies it must be remembered that the British Government, besides helping the aero clubs, was paying out large sums in subsidies to Imperial Airways. The New Zealand Government did not subsidise commercial aviation at all, and had not ever considered helping to subsidise the England-to-Australia service which would give us a three-weeks’ mail and passenger service to Great Britain. Many elub members considered it unfair to the Air Force that the club subsidies should be taken out of the Air Force vote, which was pitiably small. Though it was obviously economical for the aero clubs to be controlled through Air Force headquarters, the Air Force should not have to provide the subsidies. “I noticed in the account of the war game at the Officers’ Club that one force located the other by aerial reconnaissance. The annual report of the defence forces showed that New Zea land had exactly one service ’plane that was not obsolete, so apparently it was supposed to do all the reconnaissance, photography, army co-operation, and bombing, as well as protecting itself from the enemy aircraft that could be expected to be attacking it. That shows that the Air Force cannot spare the money.” The Canterbury Club, it was said, was probably in as good a position as any, as it had’ about £4OOO in reserve, which it had hoped to use for another purpose, but which would apparently have to be eaten away nt the rate of about £5OO a year. It could last out a few years. Other clubs had no such reserves, and failing an increase in subsidy would probably have to stop work in a year or so, with a consequent loss of much of the njgney that had been sunk in plant.