Flying for Pleasure and Profit
MERE is matter for congratulation in this Report, particularly on the safety of Imperial Airways and on the preparation being made for the development of lighter-than-air craft. Should the new airships be successful, they will do much to maintain our position as the carriers of the world. At the same time, while the United States is spending £5,000,000 a year on civil aviation and Germany £6,000,000, and France £3,750,000, we cannot but feel that it is a short-sighted policy to starve our own merchant air service, especially now that Imperial Airways has begun to pay its way. There is no doubt that it is only a question of time and good management before any well-planned air line can be made to pay.
Are we, at any rate, spending the £1,000,000 a year devoted to this vital Service in the most advantageous manner ? In our opinion this Report shows that we are doing so. Our own great cities are too close together and the European capitals are too far from London to make British flying imme- diately profitable. The economic pay-load range of an aero- plane is still too short to enable us to gain the air centrality of the world, and we may not be able to compete successfully with foreign nations until the coming of the age of the airship. Yet if we would remain in the forefront of progress we should follow the example of our Dominions and do everything possible to encourage flying. Soon Australia will be regularly encircled by an air service and there will also be a link with Tasmania. Canada has granted mail carrying contracts to four companies serving remote communities and operates an extensive system of flying Forest Patrols. Overseas Light Aeroplane Clubs are springing up everywhere. We have no space to describe what is being done by foreign nations, but with the aid of the excellent maps and invaluable statistics issued in this Report, the reader may see for himself the remarkable progress that is being made throughout the world. If we are not content to relapse into the position of a second-class Power, we must hold our place in the air.
The Report deals with facts and seeks to point no moral. That may be left to the public. We have the safest and the best administered air line in the world, but it is pitiably limited in extent. We have some of the best pilots in the world, but far too few of them. As a race we., are notoriously slow to adopt novelties, but the airways of our planet are no longer that. They are an incentive to all the qualities that have made our race great in the past, and there is no reason why they should not lead this generation- and the next to infinite horizons.
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