MR. COBHAM ON HIS RECENT FLIGHT
IT is rather amusing for a journalist to watch the be- haviour of a celebrity who is harassed fOr time. Indeed, the way a man keeps his appointments and his manner when late for a meal are fair indices of his character.
Mr. Alan Cobham, whom I pinned to a sofa yesterday in an hotel, had just been asked to some party by an unknown lady, and had shaken off someone else to give a little time to ine. These significant trifles having been smoothly adjusted, he refused a cocktail, - saying he was due at a luncheon engagement in .fiVe minutes. Now Mr. Cobham is quite alive to the uses of publicity, and he had every intention, I know, of giving the readers of the Spectator his full views on the Cape .65' Cairo flight : at the same time, he was undoubtedly- pressed for time, so he packed and rammed down his ideas into a very small compass. I give them just as he gave them to me, as far as my memory serves, to illustrate a certain compression and intensity which seems to me typical of this young pioneer who was as ungummed as Icarus five years ago, and is now famous wherever Coin-, mercial flying is thought of.
There's one thing this flight has proved to my com- plete satisfaction," he said : " an air service can be estab- lished---4ither land or sea-planes—from Cairo. to Khar- tum, Kenya Colony and Uganda, which can fly 365' days in the year with 100 per cent. efficiency. The advan-:. tages of it will be that you can get your mails through in seven days from Central Africa instead of a month as at present. That's the first point.
" Then as regards North Rhodesia and Tanganyika there are great possibilities for an aerial survey over that country to combat the tsetse fly. You know the ravages caused by the tsetse ? Well, the beast only lives in tl: e dark. The first thing to do is to locate the forest zones, I and nothing can do that as well and as- quickly: as a camera from the air. Then strips of forest will he cleared by fire and other means. The tsetse can't jump across necks of sunlight—it will be isolated and exterminated.. Point two.
Point three is that in Central Transvaal a mail service, should be established—say, from Johannesburg, Kiinber- ley or Pretoria—across the desert to Walfisch Bay. This route will save about seven days on the mails to London._ EVery farmer should have an aeroplane in South Africa. The whole country is a vast aerodrome and the visibility is excellent you can land, anywhere, except in Natal." " Where is the money .to come from ? " I asked: " Why,. the farmers are very well-to-do and spend lots, on travelling. They must, if they don't want to be cut off from their fellow-creatures. I'm certain South Africa will take to flying : the country is made for it and so are the men ; they haVe the right temperament and a, progressiye spirit. As to the mail service to Walfisch, Bay, do you realize what the saving of only one 'day in a Week would mean 1 Time is money in Johannesburg, all right. The Chamber of Mines there ship enough gold to England for the floating interest on it to amount to £6,000, if I saved them only one day a week in the year.
But I hope to save them six days a week ;* that's £36,000 a year from that source alone to help out commercial aviation."
"What do you feel like in the early mornings," I asked, " knowing you have an unknown thousand miles of ad- venture-ahead ? "
"Feel like'? I never worry and slee0 well. We're up- in the dark, get off by dawn, stop halfway to eat some- thing : no, just anything they give us, I don't care what it is ; and in the evening we dine, I write my despatches and turn in for a good night's sleep. No, I don't believe in any sort of diet. I like coffee, but don't believe in alcohol much while one is on the job. There's nothing in flying. Everyone will be doing it soon." " What do you expect to get out of it ? " I asked. Would he say* glory or gold ? " I must make something soon. So far I haven't made a penny out of flying—it has all gone in expenses—but I must get down to brass tacks some time. Still, it's a great game. I hope to fly to Australia next. It's all a matter of organization, you know. The flying is nothing."
Mr. _ Cobham is rather less vain, I think, than the. average man. He is ready to talk about himself (who isn't, if truth be told ?) simply because he sees it will for- ward the cause of flying. But of personal vainglory he is very free : probably his life has been too crowded to leave room for egotism. He has a fighting, aggressive nose and a good domed head that should house a practical piece of mechanism. His blue eyes have a glint of har- dened steel, and his complexion is as clear as his talk. Not a man of equivocation, bombast, or half-measures, I fancy. In fact, a very lit and proper celebrity. " Some talk of Alexander." And it would be easy to drivel of Drake and a lineage of British air-dogs. Mr. Cobham is a hero with a business instinct, as indeed our Elizabethan adventurers were. He is going to make flying pay, and more honour to him for that. " We need organization to make commercial flying a success. We want to get people talking about it. Think what rapid communications mean : they have always spelt prosperity and higher civilization. You've got to tell the public that in the way that makes them listen. And I'm late for luncheon ! "
F. YEATS-BROWN.
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