OCEAN FLIGHT DANGERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19990, 5 November 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

OCEAN FLIGHT DANGERS

FUTILE SACRIFICE OF LIFE Risks That Are Legitimate (By MAJOR C. C. TURNER). /"VNE of the saddest aspects of the sacrifice of life which has attended ocean flight projects is its waste (writes Major C. C. Turner in the London Daily Telegraph ). Those numerous disappearances at sea shed no light on any problem related to the flying machine or to flying. Leaving out of account for the moment the case of the St. Raphael and its two British airmen and lady passenger, whose fate is in doubt, we shall never know what was responsible for the disappearance of the two French crews, Nungesser and Coli, St. Romain and Mouneyres, in the Atlantic; of the three American machines with a total of six men and one woman lost in the Pacific this year, and of Howell and Fraser, who disappeared in the Mediterranean in 1920. And that is not a complete list. If we knew definitely the causes, whether engine failure, or failure of some accessory, whether the aeroplane structure failed, whether the uncertainty of air navigation (unless corrected by astronomical observations or made exact by directional wireless) put the airmen off their course—if in any instance we knew the cause it would be something to the good, even though the sacrifice were unnecessary. But we know nothing. Regrettable as all flying accidents are, this can at least be said for some of them: they have been the almost inevitable casualties incurred in the overcoming of design and construction, and flight problems of aviation. They have taught lessons, and on the whole the lessons are being steadily applied. But what have the ocean flights taught? The fuel-load duration of an aeroplane’s flight can be tested over land; speed can be measured without going far from an aerodrome; the" possible distance of travel can be calculated on the basis of speed, tankage, fuel consumption, and the speed and direction of the wind. Value of the Seaplane. It was desirable to prove that Europe and America could be linked by air transport. It was proved first by the British airship R 34, next by that almost incredibly hazardous flight of Sir John Aleoek and Sir A. Whitten Brown, hazardous chiefly because a land aeroplane was used, and not a seaplane. Even in those days float and boat seaplanes were being developed. To-day they are far more seaworthy and airworthy. By their use the risks of super-ocean travel are reduced to a reasonable degree, the attention can bo concentrated upon the overcoming of such dangers as remain. Failure of engines and errors in navigation do not in the case of a well-found seaplane mean the almost certain death of all its occupants. At worst a little “roughing it” while aid summoned by wireless is hastening to the spit. In this way lessons would all the while be learned, and tho men who were doing the job would be available for further work. Bv the other way, by the employment of land aeroplanes for long ocean flights, disaster is courted, the cause unknown, and accompanied by the loss of men whose experience can so ill be spared. Proper and Improper Bisks. Pioneers must take risks, but they should take only necessary risks. None can claim that the crossing of the Atlantic by a land aeroplane (which certainly will not be the type employed on regular ocean services), in either direction, is not perilous. The risk is certainly less on the eastwards than on tho westwards journey. Four aeroplanes have succeeded in crossing the North Atlantic since the war, A fifth came down, and its occupants were saved by a miracle. The record is not bad; but everybody knows that to trust to one, or even two engines for the eighteen or twenty hours necessary for a flight from Newfoundland to Ireland is to trust to a mechanical contrivance which, no matter how good, is liable to break down. Added to that risk, on the westwards journey there is nearly always adverse wind, adding from 60 to 100 per cent, to the time needed for the flight, whilst the conformation of the American coastline gives serious consequences to a small error in navigation. Neither eastwards nor westwards should the Atlantic be flown across except by seaplane. The carrying of wireless apparatus ought in all cases to be compulsory. Those who are engaged in the development of flying must take risks at times. There are legitimate and risky experiments still to make. Many of the men who undertake them are but little known to the general public. Tho tests preliminary to and incidental to the attempt to fly from England non-stop to India had a scientific basis. The flight itself, although not without risk at the take-off, was by careful preparation robbed of all but unpreventible dangers. Three attempts were made. There was no loss of life. Much was learned. Again, test pilots deliberately take risks, as in the case of one who went up again and again and produced the condition known as “wing flutter” (knowing that it might at any moment mean wing breakage), in order carefully to observe the phenomenon and to trace its cause. That is pioneer work in which risk-taking is legitimate. Misspent Sacrifice and Labour. One danger incidental to long-distance flying, whether over land or sea is that of taking off with the utmost load the machine will carry. Already serious accidents havo occurred through aeroplanes failing to rise before tho limits of the aerodrome were reached, or to clear obstacles just beyond. Always the risk of a burst tyre or a heated axle is run, and sooner or later there will be disaster from such a cause. Those experiments ought not to be made except under the supervision of qualified experts, and decidedly the popular-spectacle element should be eliminated. Here, again, the seaplane has by far the best of it, for it can be laden to the full, and the risk of failure to take off may be cheerfully faced. Disaster in that even is not likely. The machine can be taxied back, and its load lightened for another attempt. This is not to suggest that experiments in taking off with heavily-laden land aeroplanes should not continue; obviously they are necessary, but careful research and detail experiment should come first. Tho success lately achieved by American airmen who crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific cannot be considered apart from the casualties, nor must they blind us to the facts. The cause of aviation cannot afford tho losses; it has enough of legitimate hazards to face, and it has important development to foster and ensure.