ARIEL UP TO DATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19406, 14 August 1926, Page 1 (Supplement)

ARIEL UP TO DATE.

COBHAM THE COMMERCIAL.

BY MATANGA

I drink the air before me. and return. ( —Ariel in '"The Tempest.")

Mr. Cobharn, the bold airman whose name is now on everybody's lips, does not go a-flying just for fun. No more serious mind than his ever took wings.

That he has some fun is certain. In " My Flight to the Cape and Back," a hook packed with interest, he tells some stories in a way that shows a very keen sense of delight, in a world " full of a number of tilings." There was the dear old lady whom he met at Kisurnu. "How do you manage to sleep at nights? " she anxiously queried. He told her that he usually managed to get put up by the local authorities or at some rest house or other, sometimes a real hotel. Her bewilderment was obvious. Surely the young man was disrespectfully flippant! Then disappointment came with an assurance of his truthfulness, and she sighed her rueful disillusioning—" Oh! so you come down at night, then." The relish of this narration is unmistakable. Fun for Mr. Cobham ? Yes, plenty of it. But he looks for much else.

Even Mrs. Cobham finds a place for humour about these long absences from home that take him far from her and his son and heir less than a year old. To her, as she told a newspaper man the other day, Mr. Cobham is like a bird spending most of his time in the air and coming down only occasionally for a few crumbs. She must find it no joke to have no errant a husband; yet, when somebody soon after she had said this pathetically pretty thing rallied her on it, she put a laugh into the hope she cherishes—" And I think it is time now that he came down for a jolly good loaf." Well, ho certainly deserves it; but there is no little likelihood that when he gets back, as everybody hopes he may without further mishap, he will hear some exacting Prospero say—

Ariel, thy charge Exactly is perform'd: but there's more work.

Popularising Aviation.

It is serious business, his up there. He goes aloft and abroad in the sure and certain hope that he can prove to even the most timorous groundlings that they, too, may some day fly where they will- There is an aeronautical journal on the Continent calling itself the " Revue da Vulgarisation de I'Aeronautique." The central word in that title seems more than a little vulgar itself until one remembers that it is merely good French for our "popularisation." There is Mr Cobiiam's purpose in a nutshell—a little long for a nutshell, maybe, and as broad as it is long, but a nutshell nevertheless. And it's a fine thing indeed, thus making people realise that the dreams they have had of easy flying, and the hopes they have entertained in moments of rare optimism that they may yet soar on angels' . wings, are not so' unrealisable after all.

There is something of the commercial traveller about him, albeit he, is himself so uncommercial that he does not care a bit whether any particular flight pays for itself or leaves him much to go on with. Of flying itself, he holds that it will be a financial success soon, and so rejoices when anything sets it more firmly in popular regard. A Genius for Organising. They have a trick of tongue in America, when anyone lays himself out to convince others'that certain theories or pro posals are worthy of support, that leads them to say that the busy advocate is " selling" that' notion. So, , when other folk are convinced, they are said to be " sold on" the particular proposition. Mr Cobham, to borrow that lingual gem of Amsricancse, devotes his days and nights to soiling aviation to . the great British public. Restlessly, in season and. out of season, he goes hither and t.iitber on that business, with a love for it more than for any crumbs he may pick up. for himself at intervals. His is a splendid job, looked at like that, and-he is.making good in it. . They say that he is a born organiser. " They" make sad mistakes sometimes, but this time they seem to be right. In " Skyways" and other recitals of his experiences .and projects, their shrewdness of judgment is justified. Even as a joyride pilot in his early days he showed a genius for management. On his journey this year to the Cape and back this aptitude was demonstrated very convincingly. As a mere exploit in flying it was not outstanding, It was not even his own best to date, for on the Burma trip he had covered a greater distance and made longer daily flights. What he did on the way made the African journey valuable/and perhaps an appreciation of this stirred the welcoming crowd that excitedly cheered when he was carried shoulder-high from his machine to the Croydon custom house. He did not then cover in individual days distances so groat as those traversed by Colonel. Yuillemin going from Constantinople to France some years ago. In this respect he did not equal the uight of Lieutenant Doisy to the East nor that of the Marquis de Pinedo going from Calcutta to Rome at the end of his 36,000miles travel round Australia and Japan in a flying-boat. Yet the stoppages he made were a vital part of his serious programme. j Eyes on the Ground.

" The success of an air-lino lies on the ground," in the words of another aeronautical enthusiast, and though it is Mr. Cobharn's way, like the " aii'y spirit" of medieval folk-lore and of Shakespeare, " to ride on the curl'd clouds," he never forgets the earth. Nor does he let others forget that what is done there has a vital bearing on the organisation of air routes throughout the Empire that' is often affectionately in his thought. Of the Capetown journey he has written —" If the flight has done nothing else it has been a great experience in making supply organisation, and an eye-opener to the fact that the whole of Africa is under some sort of administration and the air route under British, and that supplies can be transported to most parts." There you have his point of view. He agrees with the dictum of a French Air Transport official that " in these days of aviation the pilot on a commercial air route should always beat peace with the ground beneath him." There was more than mechanical meaning in his substitution of wheels for floats when he landed at Port Darwin the other day on his way to Sydney. It bespoke "his constant caro for ground organisation —a lesson that should be taken to heart by every Government in the Empire, our own Dominion's included. But this is venturing on advice to Air Ministries and may be better left to the experts and. the Parliamentarians. For ordinary folk it is enough to know that this British hero of the hour has landed in Sydney, and that he will not be slow to make plain to responsible authorities the things he has learned on the way. Gentlemen—the ladies will look after Mrs. Cobham —hats off to Mr. Cobham. May he get Safely back to Calcutta and to Croydon, and live to see his cherished plans achieved. We may not all want to fly, but it will be good to know that we can.