"VERY LITTLE RISK!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 260, 24 January 1928, Page 8

"VERY LITTLE RISK!”

WE are not half so daring as the public thinks,” says Captain Moody, whose preparation for an attempt to fly the Tasman has been embarrassed by the order of Colonel Brinsmead, that Captain Moody’s monoplane shall not be admitted to the Mascot Airdrome. “Given good weather, there is very little risk,” adds the captain. ' In the face of the fate which overtook Captain Hood and Lieutenant Moncrieff, Captain Moody will surely be considered as highly optimistic. The official attitude now is that oeean flights should not be encouraged, even if the authorities have no power actually to prohibit them, unless they are to be made in amphibian craft, so that airmen who are forced to descend on the water may have a chance of life. Therefore it is that Colonel Brinsmead has announced that the order refusing accommodation at the Mascot Airdrome is not specifically directed at Captain Moody’s machine, but at any land machine which it is proposed to use in an overwater flight. In reply to this, to him, unwelcome precaution, Captain Moody argues the humanitarian outlook on overseas flights to be “a craven fear of being great,” and declares it high time the British were placed first in flying, instead of the Americans. He adds, satirically enough, that if there had been a board of control in Captain Cook’s day, Australia would probably never have been found, as daring deeds then, as now, would have been prevented. There are those who argue that men should be allowed to take risks if they so desire—that they are quite entitled to endanger their own lives. Perhaps so, if any fine purpose is to be served—and none will deny the fine purpose of being first to fly the Tasman —and the limits in precaution have been taken. But whether men, or women, should be allowed to take grave risks by attempting ocean flights in unsuitable machines, when time and opportunity can provide machines which are comparatively safe, is an entirely different matter. Public opinion is dead against it, and public opinion is a force to be reckoned with.