THE AEROPLANE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22610, 29 June 1935, Page 24

THE AEROPLANE

WELCOME VEHICLE OF TRANSPORTATION

(From Oor Own Correspondent.) (Bt Air Mail) LONDON, June 8.

Mr Handley Page, at the annual meeting of hie company, asked for the fullest possible Government support of civil aviation. He referred to the promise of a full survey and report on air routes in Great Britain, made by the Air Minister to the Aerodrome Owners' Association. "The Air Ministry," he added, "have accepted the view that ground organisation is essential to ensure safe, regular and eventually profitable operation of air routes by day and night, and on this basis a sound and stabl demand for civil aircraft can be established. If the provision of such facilities can be made more general abroad as well, and prohibited areas and restrictions reduced, there will be greater possibilities for the development of travel by air than with any other means of transport. Once this development takes place the world as a whole will accept the aeroplane as a welcome vehicle of transportation and will forget unreasoning fears of the flying machine as a horrid and menacing weapon of war." SAFETY DEVICES, Referring to the importance of wingslot and slotted flap devices in assuring high speed with safety, he said: "One of the necessities in reaching higher speeds is the use of means for increasing wing lift and reducing wing area (o lessen resistance at high speed. In this development our company has been a world pioneer in the initiation, development and perfecting of slots and slotted flaps for increasing lift and controllability of aircraft at slow speeds. Slots and the devices associated with slots represent to-day the only practical means of co-relating speed with safety. Our patents covering the slot have been taken up the whole world over, and it is interesting to note that one of the most important of the patents in this group has still a long peiiod to run in that the automatic slot patent, taken out in 1927, does not expire till 1943."