FLIGHT TO AUSTRALIA

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 26

FLIGHT TO AUSTRALIA

WHAT IT TAUGHT

THE ESSENTIAL SEAPLANE (Sir Alan Cobham, in London “Daily Mail.”) It would be impossible in these earh years of aviation to fly to Australia and back without learning much about what is really needed if we are to run Empire air services. We set out to make a survey of aviation possibilities between England and Australia, and hoped at the same time that the success!ul completion of our flight would make sound aviation propaganda. But our main object was to find out whether it was possible to maintain air services along tins great Empire airway throughout all seasons. Having already flown in India and Burma in the fine weather season we knew all about flying conditions at that time of the vear Hence, in order to make our survey a sound one, we chose to fly right through the heart of the monsoon season in India and Burma. I have always maintained that the only way to test an aeroplane or engine thoroughly is to “push out into the blue”—to get away from vour headquarters and fly across tfie world, away from all facilities and organisation, so that your craft has to stand up to its job, under al] kinds of varying atmospheres and conditions, on its own merits, without the nursing it would have in its own hangar. “A Flying Boat Job.” Possibly the outstanding lesson of the flight is the necessity of developing the hydroplane immediately for commercial transport. I am convinced that it would have been, impossible for me to complete our flight successfully with an aeroplane at the season of the year which we chose, it was only by using a seaplane that we got through. Furthermore, I maintain that a flight to Australia by aeroplane at any time of the year is venturesome and dangerous. Now. the moment chance, risk, and danger enter into flying it ceases to be commercial aviation. It is true that aeroplanes have flown to Australia, but not in the monsoon period; and even so they were lucky a hundred times over during the flight. I am sure that the monsoon periods in the East, on the Australian route, can only be passed quite safely in either a flying boat or seaplane. Furthermore, the route from Calcutta all the way to Port Darwin, Australia’s most northern port, is a flying-boat job at any season of the year. To my mind, wherever there is a big river to follow as an air route it is absolutely a seaplane or flying-boat job, unless the country is very good for landing. As an instance, on this flight we were able to fly in comparative safety down the Euphrates in a bad dust storm with hardly any visibility, because I knew that I could land in a moment’s notice in the water beneath me. When the visibility became too bad we did land and quietly beached our machine without any trouble on the mud bank. Again, when we ran into a monsoon storm through which it was impossible to proceed on the outward trip to Rangoon, we safely lauded on the nearest creek and waited until it had abated. The same procedure was carried out on the return flight, when we took shelter oil a lonely island, and again in a creek at Tanoon, ill Siam All these instances go to prove the utility of a seaplane as against an aeroplane over a "more or less water route. I feel sure that the monsoon can be tackled. If sufficient ground organisation were employed, the stop-ping-places were in short jumps, and wireless equipment were installed on the aircraft and at all the various landing places, it would be possible to dodge the worst weather and maintain a service.

I discovered that the people who lived on the spot knew very little about weather conditions, except that there might be rain, and a storm at any moment during the monsoon period. No one had a weather sense, and meteorological reports were a thing unknown If an air line were running, and meteorological records were kept, I believe it would be possible to forecast local weather.

Air Liners of the Future. The air liner of the future, whether aeroplane, seaplane, or flying boat, must be a liner in itself, self-contained, and able to stand on its own. Hangars should be a thing of the past. The cabins should provide ample refuge for passengers from storm and sun, and should the aircraft be delayed in some lonely spot the passengers should be in the same position as if they were aboard ship. There must be a great future for the very big flying boat, which should be as seaworthy as airworthy—in fact, a boat that flies. Such craft would be the right type for the air route from Calcutta to Australia

A detailed report has been written for the Air Ministry and all concerned in the flight. The report deals with the route conditions, the behaviour of the Siddeley.Jaguar engine, the performance of. the De Haviland type 50, and the short all-metal floats.

Among the scores of observations in this report, we have emphasised the importance of all-metal propellers, especially for monsoon conditions; also the necessity for some 'suitable treatment to prevent corrosion of the metal floats in salt-water, some means of silencing the engine, and the importance of weather-proof and water-tight cabins on the seaplane The flight lias proved that flying from a mechanical point of view has reached the stage when it is as reliable as any other form of transport, and that all that is needed to run an air line with safetv and regularity is effective ground organisation the right type of craft for the job. It is a known fact that 75 per cent, of the success of an air line is accomplished by good ground organisation To me Australia was a great discovery,- and it did not take long to see that here was a country with a wonderful future for flying. In Australia it is possible to flv BGS davs of the year. The English pilot would look upon flying in Australia as a rest cure.

Tn Australia, as in other parts of the world, aviation will open up communications and assist in the development of the country as no other form of transport can.

Aviation is an Empire necessity as a means of speeding up communication and bringing outlvmg districts in touch with big business centres It is not a question of whether the air line is a commercial proposition as a mere transport concern, but a question of whether it would not be a good thing to open up a countrv bv running an air service.

Finally, let me add that aviation will onlv succeed when it is adopted bv the public, and the public will only become interested in flying as a result of sound aviation propaganda.