AVIATION IN NEW ZEALAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22068, 26 September 1933, Page 6

AVIATION IN NEW ZEALAND

While the Otago Aero Club is able to present an encouraging report upon useful service performed in stimulating aviation activities in the provincial district during the year, it is evident that it is lacking the full support to which it may claim that it is entitled. Public interest in aviation in New Zealand, save in the respect that it presents a still fairly novel spectacle, has not yet been appreciably excited. The proverbial man in the street is content to retain his foothold upon solid earth, and leave the undefined highways above it to the adventurous and far-sighted. In his presidential report last night Mr A. H. Allen, after expressing the opinion that more practical support might be given to the' Aero Club by the community than it has yet received, referred in particular to the slim financial assistance which is received from the Government. It might be suggested that it' is the responsibility of the Government, rather than of the public as individuals, to assure that the aero clubs are not hampered in their valuable work by an inadequacy of their funds. The Government certainly accepted that principle when, as Mr Allen recalls, it gave recognition to nine clubs and undertook to subsidise them to the amount of £25 per pupil up to 20 pupils securing their "A" licenses each year. But since that undertaking was given in 1929 the extent of Government assistance has declined. A reduced subsidy of £.22 10s is now paid in respect of only nine pupils. Compared with the support given to aero clubs elsewhere in the Empire in training pilots, the contribution in New Zealand is extremely small. In Great Britain, where the Royal Air Force and Imperial Airways are promoting aviation altogether apart from the aero clubs, recognised clubs are competent to qualify for annual subsidies of £ISOO. The urgent need for economy provides the explanation of the inability of the Government in the Dominion to make greater provision for the aero clubs, but in view of the fact that in. New Zealand, no less than in Great Britain, the Air Force must in the future form a main line of defence, it may be questioned whether the policy that has been pursued is not short-sighted. It is certainly desirable that in any increase in the air defence expenditures in this country the aero clubs, which provide the pilots on whom the system must be based, should receive consideration. The development of civil aviation, which must now be accepted as inevitable as well as, in many ways, of practical advantage, also requires that the aero clubs should receive encouragement. Some idea of the extent to which civil aviation might be employed in this country has already been provided by pioneers in air transport. It is interesting to learn, from a report of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, that eleven air routes are already being operated in Great Britain, and that next year the number will be increased to twenty or more. This suggests that, while the cases are not similar in respect of the population to be served, any impression that air transport is not practicable in countries of a small area, such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, must be revised. It was

suggested by Mr Allen that the press, by printing reports of aviation accidents from various parts of the world, is indirectly retarding a growth of public confidence in air-travel. It is erroneous, however, to assume that all aviation mishaps receive prominence, regardless of their magnitude or of the personalities involved in them. In any case, it may be left to the intelligence of the public to dissociate ordinary civil aviation from longrdistance and experimental flying in which adventurous airmen and airwomen are so frequently engaging with occasionally unfortunate results.