CIVIL AVIATION

Southland Times, Issue 18968, 15 June 1923, Page 13

CIVIL AVIATION

PROSPECTS OF OVERSEAS FLIGHTS BIG DEVELOPMENTS PENDING General reports have been issued to the British Press with regard to the subjects discussed at the last Air Conference. Perhaps the most interesting papers from the civil aviation point of view (says an expert writer) were those of Major-General Brancker, the Controller of Civil Aviation, dealing with recent developments in civil flying and predicting the revival of public interest in aviation, and that of Commander C. D. Burney, R.N., on airship service®. Although owing to lack of funds it has not been possible for great developments to take place, it is clear that research has gone on very rapidly, and at the first sign of increased public support th© models produced in Great Britain will be paramount. The airship and the aeroplane are not by any means rivals nor in any way antagonistic, but must be considered as complementary, not only so from a civil, but from a military point of view. Certain functions and limits of application may be properly identified as peculiarly characteristic of each type of craft. Unhappily the inception of an airship service for commercial purposes involves very heavy capital outlay, so heavy indeed that in the present state of international finance the inauguration of such schemes is hardly possible unless subsidised by the respective Governments of the various countries. LONDON TO NEW ZEALAND.

The aeroplane, while capable of longdistance flights, is handicapped by the necessity of making comparatively frequent landings for replenishment of fuel and oil. The problem of night flying, upon which the full and extended development of commercial aviation so largely depends, is happily well on the road to successful solution. Several experimental night flights have been satisfactorily accomplished recently on the London to Paris route. Traffic control, organisation, and wireless navigation arc rapidly attaining a very high pitch of perfection. The airship, which is capable of remaining in the air for a week at a time at its full speed, is pre-eminently adapted for long non-stop flights, such as the route to India, Australia, and New Zealand, and, moreover, avoids very largely ’istoms and other complications incidental to l be construction of landing grounds in different countries necessarily involved when using the aeroplane. The undoubted success of the mooring mast as a means of fuelling, gassing, embarking, and disembarking passengers and cargo has considerably reduced the expenditure necessary in operating efficiently an airship service. Ground personnel has in consequence been reduced from the 200 or 300 which was necessary before the advent of the mooring mast to an insignificant few, about eight, while the need for large and expensive sheds, except as building and repair berths, has completely disappeared. In countries such as Norway and Sweden, which have innumerable lakes and fiords forming ideal natural landing “grounds,” the employment of the seaplane and so-call-ed flying boat could be embarked upon with the very greatest advantage and economy. This type of aeroplane is a distinctly different proposition to the land type, and its development is proceeding on steadily progressive lines. The nation that is paramount in the air viil be most probably paramount in a military sense. This ascendancy will be gradually attained by the development of civil aviation rather than by a purely military aerial programme. The strength of a najion, therefore, in an aerial sense, will be measured in terms of its civil aerial prosperity in the same way as the naval power of a nation is built on, and is dependent on, the magnitude and prosperity jf ite mercantile marine. The British aircraft firms, as well as the Air Ministry, are taking a great interest in the National Exhibition at Gothenbur, Sweden, in July next, to which it is hoped to send a representative collection of British aircraft, aerial navigation instruments, historical pieces of apparatus, photographs of service flying during the war, and other articles of public interest. The Vickers firm are sending one of their largest aeroplanes, and several other firms will be showing the type of apparatus which they have developed individually. It is understood that the firm which has developed the art of advertising in the sky by means of an aeroplane which traces out words in white will be prepared, should the weather be suitable, to demonstrate this kind of activity during the run of the exhibition. It is not long since this firm demonstrated in New York a method of advertising previously unknown in America. It is anticipated that the aerial activities of the nations of the world will be a very pronounced feature of national development in the immediate future. Signs are not lacking that the struggle (so far unexpected) for aerial supremacy is on the point of besoming a definite and active reality. Britain, with her accumulated war experience and her untiring and assiduous work in air research, should be well equipped to enter the struggle with high hopes of ultimate success, and it is hoped that the air activities of the world will be moulded and governed by the peaceful demands of civil requirements rather than by the stern call of military exigencies.