The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1920. PROGRESS IN AVIATION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 75, 22 December 1920, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1920. PROGRESS IN AVIATION

The abandonment by one of the British aviation companies of its London-Paris air scrvico marks a break in the otherwise promising progress of civil aviation in tho United Kingdom, but it seems unlikely that tho event is in _ any broad sense significant. Aviation is still so far from being established on a purely comiiicrcial basis that those engaged in its early development are bound for a timo to encounter checks and disappointments, but in'spite of such experiences there aecmS to bo ample justification for the opinion recently expressed by Mr. Winston OitimcHiLT, that to suppose that the world having got into the air was ever going to conic out was as absurd as to suppose that the world, having taken to steamship*, was going back to schooners and sailing ships. There is some difference of opinion amongst experts regarding the prospects of commercial aviation in the immediate future. . Some authorities contend that aviation companies, ipursuing sound method! will be able in the comparar tively near future to earn adequate profits without looking to the State foi 1 financial assistance. This seems, however, to be taking a good deal for granted. One of the delegates at the Air Conference held in London a couple of months ago declared emphatically that from personal experience he knew commercial aviation at present to be a financial failure. The running between London and Paris, he said, could not possibly pay if depreciation, insurance, and other charges were properly allowed for. On the other hand, it is claimed by the Aernvlane that two at least? of the existing cross-Channel air lines are making a profit on their running expenses (a good deal, of course, depends on what this term includes), "though perhaps not enough as yet. to pay a dividend on the capital Value -of their machines and plant," and that this scale of their operations is steadily increasing as various businesses are discovering tho advantages of air transport. "It is quite obvious that'the development of commercial aviation is at present seriously hampered by high capital and.working costs, and to some extent, particularly as regards the development of passenger services, by the appreciable clement of risk that attaches to air transport. The claims of civil aviation to encouragement and support rest partly on the nssuied prospect tbati as time goes on the cost and _ risks of aerial transport will diminish, and its advantages broaden; partly on the fact that the reasonably rapid development <ji civil flying is essential to the sour'Q provision for aerial defence «'mc:h is n6w demanded as ft matter of ordinary prudence.

In the course of a. rWent, article j'p the London Observer, Lonn Montagu of Beatoieu remarked that the results arid conclusions of the Air flnnfovoncc, n gatherfmr whirfi was attended by representatives of more than a dozen countries, may .be summed up in a very few sentences:

''Postal air services should bo established by the Government to assist aviation while it is goincf through its infantile diseases and growing up; enough of the land of must bo retained to ensure that the centre of the world's web (of aerial routes) is in safe h&nds; the chapter

of accidents will go on though the relative safety of Hying will inci'ease every clay; and finally, the conference rau'sfc be held again next year." Commenting on tho worldwide scope of aviation, .Loud, Montagu observes that around the conference room were maps showing routes already covered over t.lin world, such as from London to Australia—some 11,000 miles—from Central Africa to Bulgaria, from India to Western Europe, from Morocco to Stockholm, and over the Atlantic Ocean between England and America,.

Europe, of course (he continues), 60 far shows the greatest network of air routes in operaiion or projected, while the United States is not far behind, being porhaps a more promising field than any other in the world. Like spiders' webs, air routes will radiato in future from every important centre of population. Atid there will be meeting *nd crosairu; places, and junctions fos; continents, while that block of land which consists ill geographical* terms of Eurone, Asia, and Africa will become one continent so '»r as aviation is concerned. The psychological and geographical centre »f this lifts m Egypt at a point between tlio Mediterranean and ' the Gulf of Suez. Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, where civilisation and commercial enterprise were focused over 5000 years ago, is now destined to be the most important ceutre through which most continental air routes will pass.

, It was made particularly clear at tne Air Conference that although much attention is concentrated on the progress of the aeroplane, the airship is by no means out of tho running: Against the great cost of building and maintaining giant'airships, there are somo material coun-ter-considerations. Airships are stated to be definitely safer than heavier-than-air craft, they are under no disability in night flying, and they show a much gi'eater margin of superiority in speed over seatransport than aeroplanes do Over competing forms of land transport. Heal force thus resides in the contention that airships will play an important part in maintaining services along tho longer air routes, particularly where there aro extended journeys to be made over water. Tho possibilities of the airship as an Empire-linking unit were Interestingly sketched in a news article \ve published on Monday. So far as this country is concerned, an airship soi'vicc to and from tho United Jy.ugdom maintained by such airships as already exist would reduce by two-thirds or more the time spent on the journey by sea. As affairs aie moving it may not be many yfiars before the opportunity of cooperating in the establishment of a service of this nature presents itself.