The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1909. AVIATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9675, 14 December 1909, Page 4

The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1909. AVIATION.

More than once it has been held to be a reproach to Britishers that they h,ad not made such progress in the science of aviation as some of their foreign rivals. It was even hinted that British mechanical skill, and scientific knowledge in the respect mentioned were not what they ought to be, but such charges have arisen rather from impatience on the part of those making thsm than from a knowledge of what was being done. The British mechanic, inventor, and man of science is second to none in any part of the world, while he believes in the virtue of the maxim "slow and sure." While Continentalists studied and made experiments in aviation, and fairly raved about their progress, Britishers similarly interested were really in the van of the movement. Aviation mactings have recently been held at Doncaster and Blackpool, and the exhibitions given fairly astonished the spectators, who included practically all the leading experts in aviation. The meetings, in fact, torm an important landmark in the history of aviation in England. Stormy winds interfered a good deal with the carrying out of the programme, yet in spite of the long interruptions caused to flight the high winds at the meetings have provided opportunity fnr one of the finest and most suggestive feats of flying which have yet been achieved in any country. The difficulties imposed by the weather at Doncaster and Blackpool have served to show with increasing clearness the uncertainty which still surrounds the future progress of the science. The aeroplane is not yet within sight ot becoming a trustworthy means of everyday transport for men or merchandise, in spite of the magnificent potentialities which it has revealed, more and more fully, in the hands of daring and well-practised steersmen. Its progress must to a great extent depend on the further development ot a suitable type of engine; and there are other important respect* in which substantial imp o c.iiin{.

is necaßsary before it finally takes . a recognised place among the every day resources of civilised life. Though the development of the flying machine has brought us to the threshold oi a new and wonderful era of mechanical progress, thpre is already unmistakable evidence that the honours of the new era will be by no means only mechanical. It is manifest that the successful use of the aeroplane will be less dependent upon perfection of mechanical construction, and will make a proportionately greater demand upon human nerve and skill, than aly ot the i various forms of mechanical locomotion which have been developed durI ing the past century. So far from ! human nature becoming eventually - atrophied or corrupted, in one way or another, by the progress of mechanical invention, as it has baev the tendency of some thinkers to argue, it is reasonable to claim that thj latest form of mechanial triumph will impose upon it one of the most searching tests of fitness. The driving of a motor car demands a fair measure of vigilance and nerve, but hy the general consent of those who have tried both forms of amusement it is nothing to the steering of an aeroplane. From the point of view of personal daring and initiative, the newest method of travel finds a closer parallel in the early human feats of tamfng the horse for riding and learning to aai! a boat, than in the invention of the steamship or the railway engtae. of the human element in the new pursuit comes naturally out in the concentration of popular interest even more in the "flying men" than in their machines. When railways and steamships were new, the absorption of public attention in them was immense. But the machine then dwafted the man, and its preponderence helped to create that exaggerated sense of the moral import of merely mechanical progress which was prevalent in the mid-Victorian era.