AVIATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5484, 7 October 1929, Page 3

AVIATION.

AIR COMMUNICATIONS. LINES OF DEVELOPMENT. A distinguished visitor from North America to New Zealand rather startled us recently by expressing the opinion that, within the next decade, business men contemplating rapid trips between Auckland and Wellington will have acquired the habit of going by air, says the Auckland Chamber’ of Commerce Journal. New Zealanders as a whole, adds that journal, have failed to realise the recent phenomenal development of aviation in the Northern Hemisphere, of which the following article gives some idea. The signal service performed by aeroplanes in reconnoitring the earth-quake-stricken area and in maintaining communications with districts whose road communications had been cut off has, in the past few months, forcibly brought home to the New Zealand public the .enormous possibilities of this new means of transport : for we, in our comparative isolation in New Zealand, have not realised sufficiently the enormous strides that air communications have lately made in other lands.

The air habit is-only slowly developing, and the public mind has been somewhat spellbound by Press reports of accidents that have taken place when air navigation was in the experimental stage, under abnormal war conditions, under stunt conditions, or in cases of reckless private flying. Commercial aviation is, however, liable to one of these dangers, and transportation of passengers by air is, according to investigations conducted independently by the Manchester Guardian Commercial and the Berliner Tageblatt, reaching a state of safety comparable with that of transportation by more traditional means. The essentials to safe flying may be enumerated thus : (1) Skilled pilotage ; (2) adequate equipment, including safe construction, good engine, and a sufficiency of instruments ; (3) proper ground organisation for the care and maintenance of equipment, landing fields, and airways ; (4) provision for lighting for night flying ; (5) provision of emergency landing fields at definite points ; (6) the development of a meteorological service for reporting actual weather conditions on the route and for short-time forecasting, along with a communication service from the ground to the plane. In this connection it must be admitted that a satisfactory means of safely flying through fog has not yet been worked out, though safe night flying is now an established fact.

During the past yeai’ the mileage flown by regularly operated air services in the United States aggregated more than ten million miles, which is twice the figure for 1927. Passenger service is to-day regularly available over 21,000 miles of airways, and mail is carried on regular schedule over routes covering 36,000 miles. In addition, general cargo lines (excluding mails) transport light freight over courses some 18,000 miles in length. The Ford Motor Company, for example, maintains its own air transport system for the shipping of motor parts and general light cargo. Some 35,000 passengers were transported by the commercial services during the twelve months of 1928. These companies carried over 2,500,000 pounds (weight) of cargo and approximately 4,000,000 pounds of mail. The latter represented an increase over the preceding year of over 150 per cent. The income of private operators from the transport of mail alone amounted to seven and a-half million dollars. To make possible regular scheduled services vast sections of the country have been illuminated for night flying, and it is possible now to fly by night over 7500 miles of lighted airways.

The development of regular air lines in Great Britain has not proceeded as rapidly as in Germany. This, however, can be largely explained by the much heavier subsidy granted to air transport in the latter country. Before air services can pay it seems necessary that they should average at lease 75 per cent, of capacity loads, and until the air habit develops further, this ideal can scarcely be achieved. There are other factors which make for high operating costs. The process of sifting the most suitable types of machines is still going on, and can only be gradual considering it has to reply on practical experience alone to be effective. This means that the economies of mass production cannot yet be achieved in the production of aircraft. Moreover, the motor that is placed in a ’plane must be ready to run to the limit of its capacity immediately. The pilot has no opportunity to fly his engine at twenty miles per hour for 500 miles, as\is the case with a new motor-car. The aeroplane must be ready for its maximum performance if necessary on its first flight. This means more expensive engine construction.

There are some fundamental economic considerations in air transport which offer opportunity for comparison with other means of transport. In air, as in ocean, navigation there is no need to provide the expensive track, tunnels, viaducts, etc., which so greatly add to the capital cost of a railway undertaking and in a lesser degree to all other forms of land transport.

The major cost of aircraft operation is obsolescence and depreciation. There is little experience yet to guide as to the proper allowances to be made in these connections, though it is usual at present to write off equipment in somewhere from two to three years. Revolutionary changes in technique are frequently taking place : hence the need for the very conservative allowance.

The writer of an article in the Manchester Guardian says : —

“It should be remembered that the paying factor in air transport is not the load carried, but the time saved. Time is a commodity that has a definite market value, and oJ this commodity aviation offers the business man

the highest value for money. A recent survey has shown that the average daily transfer of funds and securities between two large cities in the United States amounts to about 1,300000 dollars ; between two other cities to about 5,000,000 dollars. Most of these transfers are now sent by air, and the interest saved is enormous. Occasions are always arising in business when it is essential to despatch samples or consignments to reach their destination in a guaranteed minimum time. Aviation achieves this object at a comparatively small cost. Where ordinary transport is subject to long and troublesome Customs delay, aircraft, operating by day and night over’ an organised air route, with its rapid Customs facilities, is able to save days, and in some cases weeks. Every kind of article of reasonable freightage is suitable for air conveyance. Motor-cycles, for instance, are frequently seen among the goods dispatched from the air ports of London, and a recent consignment consisted of a quarter-ton bulk sample of pig-iron, which was carried to Belgium in connection with an urgent tender. Some classes of goods are now established as regular air freight. Silk, bullion, to the value of 4,000,000 pounds sterling in six months, millinery, hosiery, perfumery, furs, kinematograph films, motor parts, table delicacies, horses, and pianos are all typical examples.” The factor of speed represents today the outstanding advantage that the airplane possesses as a means of transport. The history of transportation is largely, but perhaps not entirely, a history of ever-increasing speeds. To-day the average cruising speed of the best modern aircraft is certainly not less than 90 miles per hour. This works out at nearly twice as fast as the average speed of a fast passenger train. The fastest train between Wellington and Auckland takes 14 1-3 hours. Aircraft would do it in 31> hours, allowing for the fact that the air machine, unlike the train, adopts the shortest route—as the crow flies — but immeasurably faster and pernaps even more unerringly. Edsel Ford writes : “A constantly increasing number of business concerns are buying ’planes for their own use. Business men like a clean, comfortable, fast journey—and that is what the airplane offers. . . . Or-

dinarily an airplane is smoother than a railroad train, and passengers may read and write in comfort. In addition to the physical comforts, we must not forget that the airplane is the only vehicle that takes full advantage of the old geometric axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two ports—or two cities.” One of the difficulties with regard to air communications that is gradually being overcome is that of providing suitable landing and starting points sufficiently near the heart of great cities.

The advent of the plane and the airship is likely to break down some of the advantages enjoyed by ports as such during recent decades. By the development of aviation any inland city or town is capable of developing into an international port of first rank.

One problem in establishing ocean airlines is that of breaking the journey up into lesser distances, at the end of which the plane may be serviced, weather reports received, etc. To this end “seadromes” are being designed. These .are large floating islands which, within five years, are expected to be strung across the Atlantic at intervals of 375 miles. The device is being experimentally installed now between New York and the Bermuda Islands.