AERIAL TRANSPORT.

Northern Advocate, 2 September 1919, Page 4

AERIAL TRANSPORT.

AIR POSTS A.M.) TELE-GRAMS

700 WORDS A PENNY TO PAULS

MR HOLT-THOMAS- • FORECAST,

Lord Montagu of P.eaulicn presided at a dinner of the Loudon Society in London on June 27. when Mr G. HoltThomas read a paper on "London and its future Aerial Transport."

The chairman suid that he took it great deal of interest in aviation in London, because so far as he read the Transport Bill now before Parliament, aviation was the only thing that was left out of it and the only t-liing' that would not be controlled. (Laughter.) London 'must be the centre for the meteorological research of Western .Europe. Meteorology and navigation were the two most important things to study in aviation to-day. Geographically I speaking, the position of London ill regitrd to Western Europe was the most important. We were the nearest of all the big capitals to the Atlantic and our meteorologists were, owing- to the difficulties of foreseeing the'variations in our changeable clirnaie. possibly as good as, if not better than, any in the world. London must naturally become, in his opinion, the centre of meteorology in Western Europe. COVERED IN PARKS. London was the big-ges't capital in the world and he thought they needed above everything in winter open spaces which .were not subject to the disadvantages of wintry weather. He was going to throw out an idea which might seem somewhat fantastic, but which, he thought, many of them would live to see. He thought they would live to see same of their parks roofed in. They wouJd live to see a park like St. Jaunes' Park or the Green Park covered with a great glass roof, which would be the central landing stage of London. There would be the aeroplanes landing on the roof, light and sunshine pouring through the glass, the sides open, and the wind blowing through and underneath, so to speak, an open winter garden. Tfiey would land all their aex*oplanes, say, right in the middle of Hyde Park or St. James' Park; and. right underneath the masses would be tak-' ing their pleasure. He only threw that out as an idea*, but he believed that it would come, and that a landing stage in the middle of London would be practicable. CENTItA'L A BROD ROME. Mr Holt-Thomas, at the outset, confessed that he could not imagine, enthusiast as he was, that internal flying* in. London was going to render any great, service; that was to say, he could not see aeroplanes conveying mails from the General Post Office in the city to the post offices of the West End, although it was impossible to prophesy safely as regarded flying in view of the enormous progress recently made. It was possible that indirectly London niig<ht be interested in flying by its interests in the necessity for open spaces. The London 'Society were out to reform, to secure open spaces, and consequently better health, for the population of London. They would, he thought, some day be working hand in hand with those interested in aircraft with the object of securing large open spaces in the centre of populous districts. If we started to lay out a new town nowadays a central aerodrome worfld be almost the first item planned,

In an incidental reference to the air-raids on London, he urged the need of a sufficiently large air force being kept in existence to repel possible future attacks by air. He had no doubt that all who had read the newspapers that evening thought that, a League of Nations, though very desirable, was rather doubtful, and that if we were left without an air force we should be in a very precarious position. AIK.CUVFT OnSTLVU CABLES. As to the general question of aerial transport, .Mr Ilolt-Thomas alluded to the recent long-distance flightsk observing that the occupants of the machine which crossed the Atlantic took considerably longer to travel by ordinary means from Dublin to 'London than it toolc * hem to cross this enormous space. One could get to Paris to-day quite easily and comparatively comfortably by train and boat, but nothing , but the aeroplane would carry either _ passengers or letters in 2J- hours, and he saw aircraft competing much more with cables, for instance, than the train. He wotild go so far as to say that if he started an aeroplane, say, every two hours from London to Paris, and vice versa, no .more word telegrams would be sent, as they could convey words far ttnQve cheaply than any cable or telegraphic system and much faster.

IHMUMEXTS lIV AEROPLANE. lie- did not ihink anyone would so,, a lele.gram to Paris again, if a j.-tter could be deflivered in 2; hours. as no v iegrani was as efficient as a letter; also in sending a telegram one could not convey, except at. enormous expense, the sense of the .message. It was impossible to convey photographs, blue prints, deeds, certificates, and valuable documents of all kinds. II was. therefore, evident that if the aerial mail could convey, with sufficient regularity, something which the telegraph could not convey, and at a much lower rate, it had a very serious future. London and commerce, on which we all live, and, indeed, if he .might say so, on which the work of the London Society was sustained, was entirely dependent on the rapidity of communications we enjoyed. Quick communication .was the soifl of commerce, and it was especially important to have quick means of communication between London and every city of the Empire. . £120 A JOURNEY TO PA«IS. Tt cost 2d per word to isend a- telegram from London to Paris. AsSinning that it, cost £120 to fly from London to Paris, they could carry (he was quoting General Sykes) G72lb of matter. Assuming'such a low weight as 2000 words per ounce—he thought, it could safely be put .at 5000 —the number of words carried would be 21,.>00,000i which .worked out at so low a figure that one could hardly talk about the price per wr;*d. As the calculation would show, they could carry words at 700 a penny.

The same calculation showed one— and this was a subject which they had been specially studying—how the telegraphic and telephonic communication of this country could be linked up with the telegraphic and telephonic services of another country. There was another reason for talking chiefly of mail and matter, as compared with passengers —viz., the expense. Suppose it cost 10s a mile, or £120, to fly to Paris, carrying two passengers. The price of £60 was almost prohibitive. AUTOMATIC -CAMERAS. But consider the weight, say, of, two 11-stone passengers as made up of half-ounce letters, and the situation was completely changed. The two 11-stone passengers equalled 9856 letters, and at the same price per trip, the transport of the letters cost about 3d each. The charge would, of course, have to be much higher because one would not get 10,000 letters to deliver. Also a .special form of collection and delivery would have to be arrang-ed fori, as it was n > use flying from London to Paris in two hours and taking* four more to deliver letters to their destination. Every one must recog-nise that speed must be paid for.

With regard to the possibilities of stereoscojwc photography in charting unsurveyed country, Mr FJoltThotnas said that a single aeroplane had in one flight completely covered with photographs an area of 40 square miles* The cameras used f< r this work were quite automatic, and once started would go oa taking* photographs of whatever was under them, without any attention until the film was used up,