THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1909. CROSSING THE CHANNEL BY AEROPLANE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9556, 31 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1909. CROSSING THE CHANNEL BY AEROPLANE.

l The English Channel has been crossed by an aeroplane carrying a foreigner. To an imaginative patriot it may well seem that through no fault of her own England's inviolability has been wounded, apnd that the wound will leave a permanent scar. She has built the fabric of her freedom upon her supremacy on the sea that surrounds her, and now there comes to her a menace independent of the ! element over which she rules. The crossing of the Channel is no great feat so far as the distance goes, compared with some of the flights of the Wright Brothers. But it id the n>st flight of a heavier-than-air contrivance across the sea. There is something dramatic in the fact that the first transmarine flight has been made to a country that has more than any other country to lose by the derelopi) ent of aerial fleets at the expense of sea navies We live in a rapid age. It is not so long ago that we were chronicling the first aeroplane flights; now we hear of the Channel being "crossed. Experience should teach us to te very chary in pooh-poohing any predicted development of the flying machine. We are getting appreciably nearer the realisation of the prediction that before many years aeroplanes will be as common ad motor cars are now. Just at present the social and industrial uses of the aeroplane will be lost sight of by the British public in considering the possibilities' of ari invasion through the air. Sir Hiram Maxim has stated that an army could be transported to England by these machines, if the enemy in question were prepared to spend enough money, and his calculations are based on what aeroplanists can do to-day. There is no reason to doubt that they will go on doing better —carrying heavier weights and acquiring greater control over the medium in which they work. Some time ago a French firm had undtr construction an aeroplane to carry eight passengers. Warnings uttered during the last year or two will now be repeated with doubled emphasis, and it is to be hoped that M. Bleriot's success will arouse the British public to the vital necessity of keeping abreast of the rest of the world in aviation. "The best thing that could happen to England to awaken the public to a sense of their position," said the Duke of Argyll some months ago, "would be for someone to direct a large dirigible balloon —France, Germany or America, could do so—and suspend it for a time just over the Bank of England." M. Bleriot has now done something almost equally striking.