CIVIL AVIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 6

CIVIL AVIATION

BRITAIN’S LACK OF POLICY RESTLESSNESS EVIDENT (N.Z..P.A. Special Correspondent) (Rec. 7 p.m.) - LONDON, Oct. 4.‘ A statement on civil aviation is likely to be made in the House of Lords next week. A deputation of Conservative members spent an hour with Mr Churchill, who promised to consider the points raised. There is, and has been for a Jong time, restlessness at the lack of a policy for Britain’s post-war aviation, and the general feeling is that this country will be far behind America, both in aircraft and organisation, unless an energetic policy is adopted. There appears to be a general feeling that civil aviation should no longer be under Air Ministry control and that a separate Ministry of Civil Aviation should be established under a senior Cabinet Minister. There is also a desire that the “chosen instrument” of British Overseas Airways should be abandoned and that a number of independent air lines should be formed. Lord Londonderry was to have opened the debate in the House of Lords this week, and Lord Beaverbrook was to have replied, but Mr Churchill announced in the House of Commons yesterday that the Civil Air Transport Committee, over which Lord Beaverbrook presided, has now completed its inquiries and tendered its report;- He is, therefore, no longer responsible for the civil aviation policy. It is assumed that the Cabinet will consider the report before the debate next week, and that some definite statement may be made. , , . . Sir Henry Tizarfi, formerly head of aircraft research at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, in an address to a parliamentary -scientific committee, suggested that the Government should make a grant of at least £1,000,000 for civil aviation. He urged that a new Aeronautical Research Council should be established, and foreshadowed Atlantic flights in automatically-controlled aircraft, as well as passenger machines travelling faster than sound (641 miles an hour) at heights of 40,000 feet and more.