TO-MORROW IN THE AIR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3155, 6 August 1917, Page 6

TO-MORROW IN THE AIR

A PRACTICAL .FORECAST Lord Cowdray, President of the British Aid Board, recently presided at a lecture on "Commercial Aeronautics," given by Mr. G. Holt Thomas before the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. Mr. Holt Thomas said that flying has come to stay and must from an Imperial point of view bo supported in every way. Mail services .could be established commercially; business men "could uso the aeroplane commercially for many purposes, and for pleasure nothing could beat it. "Remember that we live on an island," he said. "Remember that we have always depended on the sea for our protection, and remember that we are an- Empire. On all these points it is necessary to maintain a huge aerial fleet, and the proper support of commercial aeronautics will enormously assist these ends. This time we must be first," Lord Cowdray, he added, had recently appointed a committee, with Lord Northcliffe, who had always taken such a keen interest in the subject, as chairman, to advise on the uses and development of commercial aircraft. This committee should be 'one of enormous, importance. "The aeroplane is going to open up the world as no ether means of transport has yet done, and 1 look to Lord Northcliffe, whose enterprise and energy we know, so to guide his committee that a start, at any rate, will be made quickly and on the right lines." New York in Two Days. "A special aeroplane—special used in the sense of special train—which is perfectly feasible to-day, will enable the business man to-leave London in the morning, do his business in Paris, and be home again to dinner. It will take him to Bagdad in a day and a half, or New York m two days." The development of all the overseas Dominions would be largely affected 'by flying. He dealt mainly, however, with the conveyance of passengers, mails, and goods to all parts of the world at a speed beyond anything yet attempted. We had to-day practical machines which would do well over 100 miles an hour; indeed, far higher speeds. He dealt at some length with the eosi of running an aerial service, and took his. audience through the cost of a si mple route, London-Paris. These costs, lie said, were jiot high for the speed of tho journey, and presented a really coTtmercial proposition, although at a competitive price they were slightly higher than by train and boat. Mails presented an easier proposition: He thought the solution was a mail service subsidised by the Government with the right to carry passengers. On this sample route the total cost.per mile of running a Machine was is. Bd., running one machine eac-h vay. Tiie cost came down rapidly if two, three, or four machines were run each' way daily. With four machines he took 3s. per mile as a safe figure.' The charges per passenger to Paris, at a profitable rate, so long as the machines wero fully loaded, was £a. Halfpenny Post to Paris. Mails were even more. commercial, a letter weighing'one ounce could bo profitably carried to Paris.for one halfpenny in half tho timo it could reach there under the present methods, or a 3ib. parcel for 2s. A passenger could go from London to Marseilles-in 8 hours,instead of 23, at a cost of .£lO per head; or mails could bo carried at Id. per ounce. Constantinople or Moscow could bo reached in 20 hours' at a cost per ticket of .£25; or mails at 2\ por. ounce. Mr. Holt Thomas said he had no doubt about tho reliability of the aeroplane. It was to-day almost safe to say that no wind would stop a good pilot from flying. Landing grounds were very important in commercial flying. We should have- to establish them all over tho country and all over the world. On routes covered with 10-milo landing grounds ho pictured Ceylon only 2|! days from London, Tokio ii days, Sydney 5 days, Cape Town 3J days, Vancouver 3 days. This question of landing grounds, he said, affected every point in his argument.. Safety, for instance.; The forced landing, the bugbear of Hying, would be avoided; tho problems of fog nnd of night flying would be solved. With a searchlight every 10 miles, a pilot could fly on regardless of maps or routes, always with the searchlight guiding him.