OCEAN FLIGHTS

Otago Witness, Issue 3853, 17 January 1928, Page 29

OCEAN FLIGHTS

ARE THEY WORTH THE COST?

Are ocean flights worth the price? asks a contributor to Popular Mechanics, and his answer is in the affirmative. In fact, he concludes, it may well be that the recent failures will prove as valuable to the progress of aviation as the successes. Th© past year, he notes, is “ the biggest, most spectacular year ” in all the 24 since Wright’s historic flight at Kittyhawk ; and its toll includes 20 persons, including two women, presumably drowned at sea, besides seven lives lost in preparing for long distance flights. And the whole world, he says, is asking whether transoceanic flying is worth the price in lives and material. He goes on : “ The answer is important, for throughout the world well-meaning people are Initiating movements to put a stop to such flying. Whether such a ban would work is doubtful, but three of the eight men who succeeded in crossing the Atlantic this year have declared their opposition to it. Colonel Lindbergh says it would put a stop to scientific progress ; Clarence Chamberlin declares it would retard the advance of aviation, and Commander Byrd believes the step unnecessary, because the pressure of public opinion alone will deter further needless risks by eliminating possible financial backers.

“No one can say whether the lives sacrificed will be paid for by the lessons taught, but it is probable that the benefit to aviation of the failures will be equally great as the benefits of the successes. Lindbergh showed the Atlantic could be crossed by an airplane. Chamberlin showed it was possible to cress it and carry a passenger. Byrd demonstrated that a multi-motored plane could not only make the crossing, but carry four men, the last word in scientific navigating equipment, and a complete radio installation, to keep in touch with the rest of the world all the way. “ And the failures that followed showed that once those facts had bi*n proved it was foolish to keep on attempting the feat with single-motored ships, without radio and navigating equipment,’ and with airplanes incapable not only of landing on the sea, but of remaining afloat in moderately rough weather.” :

In the final analysis it is probable, we are told, that the lessons of failure w’ill do more to speed up the building of th© right kind of planes for long-distance flying than all .the enthusiasm aroused by the successful flights. The automobile has been built on the lessons of its own faults, when driven to destruction, and the same is true of every other piece of machinery that has reached a high state of evolution. So it is reasonable to assume that the lessons of disaster may, in the end outweigh the rewards of success, and in that sense even the heavy toll of life bs made to pay. To quote further: Aviation leaders are generally agreed on a number of the lessons learned, including :

“ Abolishing the use of land planes fop long flights over water. “ The necessity for multimotored planes, capable of carrying on with at least half their engines out of commission.

“ Complete radio sending and receivin’ equipment for every long-distance with a competent radio operator in charge. Improvement of both navigation and flying instruments, and competent aerial navigation for* every long flight. Better weather reports covering conditions along the sea routes. “ Charles A. Levine, of New York, who hopped bareheaded into Chamberlin’s plane and flew to Europe as the first trans-atlantic aerial passenger, is planning a regular Atlantic air service. Announc” ing the details in London, he said he planned to build 10 planes, each with a capacity of 50 passengers, besides its crew. Each plane would have seven engines, of which only four would be in use at any one time, leaving three in reserve. Th© ships would be monoplane flying boats, capable of landing at sea, if necessary. “Their great size, with 50 passenger seats and berths, would mean economical operation. With a ship like the one he flew to Europe, the fare would have had to be at least 2500d0l per passenger, whereas his proposed seven-motored airpiano would bring the overhead down, by dividing it among so many people, ~to the point where aerial liners could compete on favourable terms with ocean steamers. >

“ Levine isn’t alone in planning mammoth air liners. Professors Junkers, Rumpier, and other German designers, are already building them, and Louis Bleriot, the first successful sea flier in history, for he crossed the English Channel, lias prepared designs for two. Both are monoplanes, each driven by four engines, placed in tandem fashion, two on either side of the fuselage, driving a pulling and pushing propeller. One of the designs calls for 2800 horse power. The passengers would be housed in the wings as well as in the central body. The other ship, a smaller model, would have four engines developing a total of 900 horse powermotors the same size as the ones Lindbergh, Chamberlin, and Byrd used—and the fuselage would be a detachable lifeboat, capable of being released from the wing and driven over the waves under its own power.

“ Equally important with bigger and better ships, powered with several engines and fitted with boat hulls, is the need for better weather service. The shortest air routes do not follow the usual steamer routes at sea, for the latter are diverted by the necessity of keeping away from land and other obstructions. Yet the only sea-? weather reports available are those wirelessed by ships. They are supplemented, in part, by predictions based on the known speed of storms checked while they moved across land, but. at best, predictions fo* •••eather over the sea remain inadequate.

“ Several inventors have proposed huge landing stages, to be anchored at internals of 500 miles across th© ocean. They ■Would be enormous harbours to shelter seaplanes, have vast landing decks for land ships, and provide hangars, machine shops, mechanics, and hotels for the passengers. *Their cost would run into the millions..

“ It is possible that a half-dozen staunch lightships, anchored at similar intervals, and equipped with powerful radio to report weather conditions hour by hour, might be more useful, at less cost. “ There is a growing field for aerial navigators capable of guiding, a plane .to any part of the world. They must know more than the captain of a surface ship, for the latter’s field is limited to the »urface of the sea and the storm winds immediately above it. “ The air pilot, on the other hand, must be not only a competent navigator by sun Mid stars, but must be an expert meteorologist, versed in the air layers for miles above the earth, and capable of finding the most favouraoie layer in which to fly his course.

“ Better navigators and better weather reports are essential before round-trip flights to and from Europe become practical. The west-bound trip has never been made by a heavier-than-air machine, and only twice by gas-filled ships. The first was the British R 34, which made the round trip to the United States just after the war, and the second was the Germanbuilt airship Los Angeles, which was flown from Germany by a Zeppelin crew and delivered to the U.S. Navy. “ Two French, two German, one English, and one Irish plane have started the westward trip. Nungesser and Coli disappeared at sea, and all the rest turned back safely when they found the weather out over the Atlantic was worse than the weather reports had led them to expect. “ The westward flight is not going to be accomplished, nor is a regular air line going to be established, without taking more chances. If the attempts were made in haste, without proper preparation and equipment, in order to win a prize donated by some well-meaning person, anxious to have his name connected with aviation and the tremendous amount of publicity such a connection brings, it may end in failure and further loss of life.

“ To aviators, however, that loss is considered part of the game, which is why they resent any suggestion of forbidding hazardous flights. They point out that when Orville Wright made his first flight at, Kittyhawk he took chances far beyond those faced by any ocean flyer. He didn’t know how to fly, nor did" he know that his ship would fly, and the ocean racers knew the answer to both.

* His home-made engine was so weak it could barely keep the ship in the air at 35 to 40 miles an hour, and every flyer knows that safety lies in speed, for the slow, lumbering plane is at the mercy of every air gust and every air pocket. “ A regulation against hazardous flying would have kept Wright, Santos Dumont, Bleriot, Glenn Curtiss, and all the rest of the pioneers out of the air. “ If aviation profits by the lessons of 'disaster, as it is preparing to profit, then it may be said that the price, however great, was not too much.”