AVIATION IN DOMINION.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18062, 28 December 1920, Page 5

AVIATION IN DOMINION.

N.Z. FEELING ITS WAY. I INFORMATION BEING SECURED. To the uninitiated New Zealand is making little progress towards the establishment of an up-to-date Aviation Department. In some respects this may be true, but an officer interested in aviation informed a New Zealand Times reported that the Dominion was not altogether standing still, and was, in fact, "feeling its way.” The expense that would necessarily have to be incurred in the establishing of an up-to-date aviation department was considerable, and one that the Government would not rush into blindly. It was recognised, however, that the question would have to be tackled seriously at nc distant date, and in the meanUme valuable information was being obtained from various parts of the Empire respecting what had been accomplished in other countries. CANADIAN FORCE. The Canadian Government had entered upon aviation to a comparatively large extent, and the establishment consisted of 1340 officers and 3905 of other ranks. The whole of the force was now in training, but the Canadian Government recently sanctioned the third of the force being trained for the remainder of the fiscal year. Fatal accidents had happened to passengers and pilots, and In order to demonstrate that aviation was not as dangerous as many people were led to believe, ho purposed flying right across Canada, from Halifax to Vancouver. The majority of the accidents, he stated, had been due to the inexperience of the pilots, and the obsolete class of machine that had been used. KILLED AN INJURED. Considering the number of miles flown and the number of passengers carried, the percentage of fatal accidents and number of persons injured in Canada was low. From May, 1919, t March, 1920, a period of eleven months, there were four fatal accidents amongst persons who ware either pilots, mechanics, or passengers during aeroplane flights, while one spectator was killed. There were twenty other accidents, in which eleven persons were injured and eight were unhurt. The number of miles flown per accident works out at 28,827, the number killed per thousand of passengers carried .015, and the number of passengers killed per thousand hours fl >*n .055.