The Aeroplantechnicon.
Page 4
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Doubts About the Immediate Success of Commercial Aircraft.
By "The Inspector."
I finished up a day in town last week, already sufficiently exciting for most ordinary mortals, punctuated as it had been by periodic air-raid alarms, by walking two miles in my slippers to locate, with several thousand other curious people, a plane which had passed low over my friend's suburban garden, spitting loud, fitful flames until its motor finally gave up the struggle. In all conscience I 'had that day had enough evidence of the possibility of aircraft in wartime to make me inquisitive as to the sequence which most of us will survive to witness. The motley crowd of sightseers, who left potato-hoeing and tennis field for the chance of a sight of the great fallen bird, were in themselves testimony to current public interest in the conquest of the air. When peace comes, as of course it must, we shall few of us be very sceptical of prophesied aireraft developments, however wild the guesses Already we are being treated to more or less convincing programmes of what will probably be achieved in the air in other than warlike directions. There will be a plentiful crop of similar prophecy between now and then. The subject is a fascinating one ; it lends itself to the building of castles in the air. Motor rioters are already beginning to let themselves loose in it. And they naturally find it obvious to picture the mails being delivered by plane, or regular passenger services to China and Peril in I do not know how few days. I see that Mr. Holt Thomas, in his recent quite sane paper, thinks that missionary effort will be facilitated to unknown and inaccessible regions —scarcely a useful development, I am of opinion. I merely mention this suggestion to indicate the manner in which this subject of the future of aerial navigation lends itself to florid and not very constructive suggestions. I fully expect to read, at no far date, in the "In the Air" column of "The Daily Aporth," an. estimate of the cost of removal of one's household goods by aeroplantechnicon or, distinguished by black-letter captions, the written results of a brain wave as to the possibility of bringing the early milk to town by plane instead of by rail. It is obvious, at any rate, that lots of people will in future be able to discover the poles—a task which has never appealed to me as other than useless.
Most of us, however, are, for the sake of our bread and butter, interested in commercial motoring, and if any section of the community should endeavour to form some ideas of the possibilities of after-war aircraft it is surely our good selves. A genial manufacturer doing well out of the war, but heartily disliking the need to recently said to me : "You know, this war is developing into a business here in England, and there is a risk of some of us settling down to the idea!" There is, to my mind, a world of meaning in that suggestion. This war is rapidly becoming a profession, in one way or another, with many of us 1Sritishers. That is rather a way we have. It will be a very difficult task to unloose our jaws as we get them more tightly fixed in the enemy's carcase. If this struggle is a business—and it is difficult otherwise to classify it, motor transport of all kinds in the air, on land, on and under the sea is commercial motoring par excellence. As the staff car, the despatch rider's bicycle, the machine-gun sidecar outfit, no less than the lorry and the tractor are in war commercial motors, surely aircraft in war are commercial craft.
C26 In a way, therefore, we are all professionally interested._• The commercial aeroplane is already with us. The speedy scout is the express special passenger craft of to-morrow. The bombing plane is the mail and weight carrier. It is apparent that these two types, relatively undeveloped as they are yet, are even now to a large extent suitable for peace-time employment in commercial directions. Of the aeroplane's use for sport I write nothing, for I know nothing. But I am interested and persuaded enough to record my conviction of the considerable use of pla.nes, and perhaps of small dirigibles, for strictly special services.
He is a bold man to-day who will venture to prophesy a limitation to invention and mechanical development. But just as I took my courage in both hands and refused to adopt the Zepp. as a thoroughly practical contrivance, so do I now venture to suggest limitations to the use of commercial aeroplanes. The principal factor .limiting the development of aircraft is, and undoubtedly will remain, the weather. Regularity and certainty are sine via eons in commercial transport, and, until we are able to do more to control the weather than to put up an umbrella when it rains, we shall never be able to publish a time-table for goods or passenger aircraft without the damaging-reservation ` wind a,nd weather permitting." War conditions necessitate 'the taking of surfeit risks in the matter of weather, which no commercial enterprise could endure for a Moment. And even in war-time, be it remembered, there are many days when the use of aircraft of any kind is well nigh impossible. Apparently no mechanical development will enable aircraft to bid defiance to the elements. We must remember that the aeroplane remains aloft in a state of unstable equilibrium, a very different thing to the Ship at sea or to train on the rails.
There may be revenue, as Mr. Holt Thomas suggests, in the special trips for great emergencies, when risks will be gladly taken, when the elements, whatever their state, must be dared ! If the duty permits the day and the weather to be chosen, there is again money in it. As I have already written, I am not vastly fascinated with the suggested increase of missionary propaganda. No I am not yet convinced of the possibility of an aerial Carter-Paterson's or of a London and North Western Airway. The cross-Channel steamer may have an aerial rival, but I should be inclined to back the Channel Tunnel for popularity.
We have not yet, with all our cleverness, succeeded in influencing the weather in the slightest degree: It rains, it snows, it blows just as it pleaseth, and no one, not even his Prussian All Highest, can stop it. And that very circumstance precludes the regularity and certainty of ordinary commercial service. We shall develop aircraft out of all knowledge, I have little doubt, but the risks they will have to run will all too frequently be much greater than those encountered on terra firma. On the whole, I think I will wait a little before I begin to write fairy tales as to the commercial possibilities of aircraft. I want to find the man who can make it rain when T want it for my potatoes. Perhaps the same man will have a scheme to control the wind and storms. But / shall never meet him. He would be worth a lot of money to the Grand TransContinental Aircraft Transport Co., Ltd