The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1929. FIFTY YEARS HENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18355, 28 August 1929, Page 8

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1929. FIFTY YEARS HENCE.

AHhouj'li tlu 1 wonderful jjroj'ivHs of aviation within rerent years has accustomed the World to I record-breaking flights, the achievement of the Graf Zeppelin in its round the world journey marks another milestone in the conquest of the air. Sir Hubert Wilkins, who accompanied the dirigible, is loud in his praise of the cruising capacity of the airship. “The Zeppelin's the thing,” the famous explorer said in the course of an interview at Los Angeles. At the International Aero Exhibition held last month at Olympia in England, a practical demonstration was given of the marvellous achievement of the first quarter of a century of the age of flying; but the experts are still looking forward. One of those who are dreaming of almost bewildering progress in aviation as will make the progress the world has made in aviation within recent years, look somewhat insignificant, is Sir Alliott V. Roe, the British pioneer of aviation, who twenty-one years ago was one of the first men to make a flight over English soil in an aeroplane. Standing in the huge hall at Olympia, dwarfed by the towering machines, Sir Alliott remarked with a sweeping gesture: “All this is nothing by comparison with what is coming. We are only at the beginning of achievement in aviation. In less than fifty years, flight from England to Australia, in less than twenty-four hours, will be commonplace. All flying in the future will be done at a height aeroplanes can reach to-day only with difficulty, it is by that means that great speeds will be attained. Aeroplanes will travel like rockets at speeds above four hundred miles an hour. Technically this is known as jet propulsion, and already exhaustive research is going on into its possibilities. We are designing machines that will only reach their maximum power at a height of 2d,000 teet. In these aeroplanes, passengers will travel in heremetically sealed cabins, inside which the normal air pressure of eight or nine pounds a square foot will be maintained. Air travel will supersede other forms, because it will be the most comfortable and absolutely safe. Every machine will be multipleengined, and an amphibian. That change will come in the next ten years. Oil fuel engines, from which a much greater power can be obtained per pound of fuel, will Supersede the present ones. The question of the amount of fuel to be carried is a vital one. By the use of such engines one could have huge machines travelling from England to New York in four hours or so, carrying only a fraction of the fuel that would be required to-day.” Already the nations interested in the Schneider Cup contest have developed high-powered machines which are capable of attaining speds of around six miles a minute. The British seaplanes which will defend the Cup, the blue riband of air racing, have been thoroughly tested and the thorough training the pilots have undergone has increased greatly their skill in handling these speedy craft. Recently, the air correspondents of the London papers report, a British pilot succeeded in looping the loop in his 300-miles-an-hour machine. Italy, France, and the United States were the challenging nations at the commencement of the trials, but disaster after disaster, in one form of another, has befallen the competitors or the machines, until it is uncertain if the race this year will be contested. But it is anticipated that the racing in the air will not form part of the nation's development in aviation. Referring to the possibility of the discontinuance of the Schneider Cup contest, the air correspondent of the Daily Chroniple recently said that the coming Schneider Cup race is likely to be the last contest for many years. The expense of organising a team is intolerable, as new racing aero engines are subjected to such a strain that their effective working life is only about five hours. It now costs £250,000 to build a series of super-speed machines, and to train expert pilots; accordingly the Various Governments are thinking over the task. France has already withdrawn, and it is now known that the solitary entry from the United States will not develop sufficient speed. The loss of three seaplanes and the death of one of Italy’s famous pilots have served to emphasise the costly futility of the Schneider Oup contests. It is more likely that developments in aviation will proceed along the lines suggested by Sir Alliott V. Roe, with the eyes of the experimen tutors firmly fixed on the commercial possibilities of the lines of progress pursued by the nation's aviation experts.