The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1920. AIR TRAFFIC PROGRESS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3470, 26 April 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1920. AIR TRAFFIC PROGRESS.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.” '

- nature of recent cables gives cause for wonder whether airships will not become a serious competitor to shipping in commerciall freight and in passenger trafiic. It is indeed difiicult to understand and believe ’that air freight can ever seriously challenge water carriage, and yet‘air trafiic experts are‘ asserting that. there is a great commercial future "for airships. A lecturer of the Royal Society of Arts stated that the chief advantage of airships Was‘ that they furnished a means of safe and rapid long-distance transport. Commercial airships were readily convertible into fighting ma‘chines,’providin»g an immediate air fleet.,_. with full personnel and fighting equipment. in the event of war, From these statements by Air—Commodorc Maitl-and aerial navigation and transport is in-a much more advanced stage than is generally supposed. It is claimed that stea-mships cannot. become a competitor in improvement of long distance transport. Air transit companies can do a profitable business by carrying a ton of mails “between Britain and Australia. at two shillings an ounce and passengersat £l9O per head, the journey occupying nine and a half days. Withoiit doubt a very co-nsiderablc passenger traific would spring up between Britain and the Antipodes even at £l9O per head. This is a time-saying age, and as the airship would'perm.it of a. journey, !business being transacted, and a re turn home again in less time than the fastest steam ship could do the. one journey. the airship companies would be sure of a. fairly large passenger patronage. Of course air currents on any route will have to be thoroughly explored, surveyed and charted, much as ocean currents and surface ‘winds have, but in a. niuch more thorough and scientific way, because while unknown. air rnoveiiicnts. constitute the greatest, bar to safety, if wellknown they could be brought into subjection and made to assist rapid flight and even rentler it more safe. If what air flight experts are saying is only half true it is undeniable that air transport has come to stay until something else displaces it, which, at present, is not possible of conception, despite the mere intancy of that subtle force we call electricity. The limit of the power of the airship is Calculable, not so the power and force of electricity, and’ it may be that with some future discover)’ the application of electricify to flying machines may yet startle future generations and prompt some daring being of those times ‘(,O attempt getting ‘beyond the ear-th’s atmosphere, it not getting on the fringe . the earth ’s attraction. That, of course, is scarcely conceivable for the -old world looks to have a long way to travel through space before such a discovery can eventuate. It is enough for use in this age to -be assured of a safe and rapid journey from Britain to Australasia i.n nine and a half days. In addition to our railway stations-' and ocean ports there will come into the landscape air stations and airship supply depots, with a novel series of factories and machine shops with which We in New Zealand are not yet conversant. It is not long since the motor car was nothing more than a joke, to—day the world ivenders how it ever managed to re-

volvo without it. Mechanics are moving apaee, but science continues to drag. Science is a. drug in our colleges, the only ambition, or the ruling ambition, in young men, and equally so in their parents, is that of making money easily and quickly. The proportion of law students to students in the sciences is something like ten to one. Something more than a mere mechanic is needed to map out air routes, something more even than the ordinary meteorologists will have to be pressed into the building up of safe and practicah'le air routes. But from what is acconiplished, and known a.l-

may it is probable that within a very few years sound and sight of traflic will be almost as common in the air‘ as it is now on land and water. {kirships will be leaving" and arriving at their stations, their starting and stopping pl/aces, much as railway trains do now, and if the- assertions of Commodore Maitland may be re- ‘ lied upon it will not be long before the airship will "enter int.o -commercial competition with ocean-going ships in the carriage of goods, and in‘ passenger trafiic to and from all‘ parts of the world. In his latest book, “When the Woflld Shook,” Sir’ Rider Haggard makes his air battles‘ cause the destruction of the highest" civilisation, and it is already conceivable from what is kiiown of the power of airships forwar purposes, and of the power of explosives, the most deadly of which have not yet been used. in warfare, the people having an overwhelming preponderance of such airships and such explosives, could rapidly destroy the power of all others and reduce them to a state of subjection if desired.