AIR TRAVEL O’ER Land & Sea

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 3

AIR TRAVEL O’ER Land & Sea

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The Pageant. The biggest aviation meet in the history of the Dominion will take place at the Wigram Aerodrome on Saturday.

There will be everything that will appeal to the public as well as to the most experienced airmen. All told, about thirty-five machines will take part in the display, from the three-mile-a-minute, Gloster Grebes down to the diminutive Henderson Parasol, which is not as high, when on the ground, as a man. The only factors needed to make the pageant a complete success are fine weather and generous patronage by the public. The programme has been so arranged that anyone outside the aerodrome will have very little chance of seeing the best items. The fact that the club has recently lost one of its machines is another very good reason why the pageant should be supported, as the receipts will be directed towards replacing this serious loss. Mr Chichester. The warmth of the welcome given to Mr F. C. Chichester, the New Zealand airman who flew from England to Australia. could be gauged by those who listened to the broadcast of the proceedings this morning. The Wellington people certainly seemed to do justice to the airman, and it is to be hoped that when the noted airman arrives at the Wigram ’drome by air on Saturday he will be warmly received by a large crowd. The Desoutter Flight. Christchurch has an especial interest in the attempt of Flying-Officers H. L. Piper and C. Kay. of the R.A.F., to reach Australia from England, for both are natives of this part of the Dominion. So far. they seem to be doing very well and it is the ardent wish of many that they will set a new record for the journey. Prince’s Air Pictures. A new fashion which the owners of private aeroplanes may be quick to

! follow has been started by the Prince of Wales, who has commissioned Mr Geoffrey Watson to paint two pictures of his Moth aeroplane. The paintings are now completed. The Prince is so delighted with his machine, which is a picturesque study in red and blue, the colours of the Brigade of Guards, and silver grey, that he commissioned Mr Watson to paint two studies of the machine in flight above Northolt aerodrome, where the ’plane is kept. Mr Watson went to the aerodrome, sketched the machine on the ground and then in the air, with the Prince and his pilot, Squadron-Leader Don. Unfortunatel}’, the Prince was too busy to give Mr Watson sittings for a portrait of himself standing beside his machine as he desired, but in both the pictures the Prince can be seen plainly in his ’plane, which in one picture is flying below clouds with the sunlight on it, and in the other preparing to come down on the Northolt landing ground. “ The Prince took great interest in the paintings and made some most helpful and intelligent suggestions about the technical side.” Mr Watson, who flew before the war and has worked in an aeroplane factory, told a newspaper representative: “ I understand that the pictures will hang at Fort Belvedere, the Prince’s new house at Sunningdale.” Britain’s Lead. “ Pictures of a vast and successful aircraft industry and air line operations in the United States and Germany, and of German aeronautical technical achievement, are very far from the truth,” said Mr C. R. Fairey, at a luncheon held by the Society of British Aircraft Constructors. “ They are the result of steady, purposeful, national propaganda, the like of which is unknown in Great Britain. ‘‘ln the United States there is not an air line operating at a profit. Last year a supplementary vote of £1,000,000 had to be voted for the postal air services.” Mr Fairey added that during the

best part of a day at Tempelhofer aerodrome, Berlin, he saw only three machines arrive. Of these only one was German, carrying only one passenger ! British aircraft exports, he pointed out, have greatly increased, and there is reason to believe much more could be done if measures were taken to counteract German and American propaganda. Every American child is brought up in the belief that hundreds of American air squadrons crossed the lines in France during the Great War, whereas it is a fact that not one American squadron mounted on American aeroplanes crossed the lines. lie had paid a long visit to Germany, and had spent much time in German aircraft works, and he found no evidence of technical superiority in any single detail. They were often told that German aircraft carried a greater useful load. If our idea of a commercial aeroplane is that of a machine which brushes the tree-tops as it takes off, and that must land if it suffers a 10 per cent loss of engine power—then the German claim must be conceded. Position in Germany. He found German manufacturers very far behind the times in aircraft metallurgy, employing aluminium alloys in a manner which no British constructor would look at. As to the high-grade alloy steels, now used so extensively in British aircraft, and pioneered in this country, the Germans still regarded them as “ trick steels ” and “ too expensive.” British aircraft and aero engines were technically far in advance of those of any other country, although only slightly more expensive. In time Great Britain would produce the real commercial aeroplane, in spite of the fact that the attention of the industry had been given of necessity largely to war types. Britain would succeed long before any other country, and our air line operation even now was the best in the world. Statistics of German and American air lines sedulously propagated In this country had been grossly misleading, while the effect had been intensified by the British habit of self-deprecia-tion. Mr Fairey urged that in modern conditions it was at least necessary to counteract hostile propaganda. lie pointed out that the Air Ministry could assist materially in many ways.