The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1929 PLAIN TALK ABOUT AIR STUNTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1929 PLAIN TALK ABOUT AIR STUNTS

THERE has been a great deal of plain talk in Australia and also in this country about the circumstances of the temporary loss and thrilling recovery of the monoplane Southern Cross and its crew, and the tragic disaster that overtook the questing plane Kookaburra and its gallant flyers on a desert within the Northern Territory. Undoubtedly, the vivid contrast between experiences has given a sharp edge to comment. It is also probable that excited emotion has affected the normal judgment of observers and sympathisers. In the one case four resourceful airmen who had been resourcelessly lost for thirteen days were found safe and well, only requiring good food for themselves and petrol for their craft to enable them to fly out of their plight and take to the air again apparently little the worse for a sensational misadventure, in the other, however, two intrepid comrades in heroic adventure voluntarily set out with the highest motive known to man to seek and rescue missing friends, hut soon became lost themselves, and perished in a grievous manner, lonely victims of arid famine. Quite naturally sympathy with them and their relatives has hardened the sentiment that was aroused for the adventurers who now happily are back home and again active and robust among the ways of men. Some of the comment in Australia has been so sharp as to have provoked a writ for libel with a claim for substantial damages. The character and purpose of that edged opinion about the experiences of the famous airmen with the Southern Cross must, of course, he left to the consideration and impartial decision of the law courts. It may be noted, however, that those critics who talked about jest and comedy have now to face the stark fact of a. deplorable tragedy. Everywhere now there will be general satisfaction over an announcement by the Prime Minister of Australia that it is the intention of the Commonwealth Government to hold an inquiry into the forced landings of the Southern Cross and the Kookaburra. And it is right and proper that the projected investigation should be made, not by the Air Accident Board, hut by an independent tribunal. Usually the board limits its inquiry to the technical causes of a forced landing or a destructive crash. On this occasion, the investigation should cover a wider field, and go into the whole question of the risks involved in such flights. Mr. Stanley Bruce has indicated that wide scope will be given to the proposed tribunal, and that the inquiry may result in recommendations for aircraft in line with the law of -the sea. Since the history of flying only covers a score of years, every adventurous flight still possesses all the attractions and thrills of a new sensation, hut at the same time there is a vast difference between pioneering flights for national or scientific purposes an 1 individual enterprises which might fairly be termed “stunts.” And experience in different countries during the past decade has shown clearly that the air stunt merely for the sake of adventure and such profit as an admiring world readily bestows on daring adventurers in a new element can too quickly and easily become a nuisance. There have been occasions when traffic on the high seas has been disorganised to a serious extent by the necessity for great liners to steam frantically to the aid of a derelict airplane floating perilously in mid-ocean. Of course, it is one, of the good traits in a world that sometimes appears to he very bad that communities should forget the cost of succouring disabled adventurers, hut when such adventures become habitual generous communities must count the cost and take steps to regulate control a nuisance. The latest experience in Australia demands the serious consideration of an independent tribunal as well as that of administrators and the people. One of the most amazing folliesnn the whole sorry business is the fact that experienced airmen set out on a long, hazardous flight in the face of seasonal western cyclones, and took with them less rations for four men than a lone angler would take on a day’s fishing trip into the wilds. SAVINGS BANK DONATIONS AUCKLAND was a very modest hamlet when the first subscribers to the Auckland Savings Bank got together in 1847 and founded an institution that has grown with the city. The setting of the embryo enterprise was a strange one compared with that in which the hank now works. The office, only open for an hour or two daily, was a slab shanty. To-day the bank’s headquarters share the modern aspect of a modern city. In its spacious chamber the click of ingenious calculators tells of the new methods that have supplanted the old. But the guiding principle of the hank’s existence is unaltered, and its fulfilment is reflected in another increase of deposits, the mark of a thrifty community. Another purpose the bank has set itself is given expression this year in handsome donations to the St. John Ambulance Association and the Community Sunshine Association, two very deserving public institutions. In 1906 the hank adopted the policy of setting apart some of its profits for the assistance of good causes. Restrictions as to the use to which the donations might be put were embodied in the Act of Parliament which the trustees had to have.passed before their aim could he legally fulfilled. These limitations have in a measure circumscribed the outlets for the bank’s philanthropy, but even so its beneficence has been magnificent. The trustees have chosen the objects of their generosity with fine discrimination year by year. None will cavil, for instance, at the selections announced at the annual meeting on Wednesday. The St. John Ambulance Association does a vast amount of good work in the city. Its speeding ambulance wagons are at the call of every aceident victim, and the presence of its uniformed representatives at sports grounds and other popular centres reflects the wide scope of its activities. So, too. with the Sunshine Association. The high-minded purposes of this organisation are well known, and in assisting the association again the trustees have shown a splendid conception of their responsibilities. All round the city are notable and enduring monuments to the Savings Bank’s generosity. Gazing at the noble facade of the War Memorial Museum, Aucklanders are apt to forget that the stately pile simply could not have been built hut for the help given by the hank. The Seddon Memorial Technical College and the University College are two other institutions that have shared to a notable extent in this fine open-handedness. In addition the war donations of the bank were memorable and reached a very large figure. There is a very heartening flavour about the reflection that from the effort of a band of pioneers in 1847 developed an impulse that had its echoes among suffering Belgian refugees and in distant fields of war. Better still, those echoes will ring for generations yet, and the guiding impulse still lives.