Aviation

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 11, 1 September 1911, Page 803

Aviation

/7W (By our English Correspondent). llfo>

Coronation Precautions. The fiat which has gone forth making it an offence to throw ‘‘largesse” to the Coronation crowd has not caused even a shade of annoyance to cross the motorist’s visage. The same may be said of the Bill now before Parliament which seeks to debar the aeroplanist from flying over the Coronation procession, or the crowds surrounding it. The wise men at Westminster are probably more or less convinced that this statutory embargo will be effective. 1 cannot believe so though it obviously will restrain a certain number of airmen from attempting such flights. To fly over dense crowds is a crime at the stage at which the art now is, and the punishment should fit the crime. The rub is how to make it. An aviator, laughing up his overall sleeves, can feasably set out for, say, Brooklands, can rise to the height of 3000 feet or so, and can hover over the crowd with a confident knowledge that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot identify him with a precision sufficient to bring retributory justice on to his head. Even should his engine fail him, he can glide at an angle which would land him many miles away. Should his machine collapse and fall, the authorities will then certainly fail to identify his mortal remains as being those of anyone in particular. I think, however, that this Coronation order has brought the whole question of flying and flying rights most forcibly to the front. A very grave question it is too. Our fleet, our forts, our cities lie at the mercy of those antagonistic to us. Were I an Anarchist I would seize this opportunity to wipe out the crowned heads of Europe which will be aggregated in the Coronation procession. And I would do it with a tolerable good chance of saving my miserable carcase. In the case of the aeroplane the law can be made as a Laughing Jackass, It remains impotent until such time as man’s temporary supremacy over Newton’s law of gravity is interrupted. To me, I see no chance of controlling the flying man except the strict co-operation of the authorities and certain accredited aviation societies. Give the latter the official hall-mark is my advice, and make it a grave offence for anyone to build or own a machine without the leave and license of the controlling bodies.