TWENTY-NINE SHILLINGS PER TON-MILE BY AIR
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Unpromising Commercial Aviation. By the Inspector.
IHAVE BEEN rather taken to task on previous occasions, ranging back to months before WC: began to hear much of so-called commercial. aviation, for my ref usal to be convinced as to the ' rosy prospects of flying in its adaptation for .bitsiness purposes: The last few weeks have, as we all know,' been full of propaganda intended to boom the _commereial use of aeroplanes. Whether the ill-starred and wholly unnecessary Atlantic-flight programme had this as its object or whether it was merely an eruption of super-sportsmanship, I amnot properly aware. But as a means of demonstrating the practicability of commercial aviation its value:was exactly nothing, whatever the result might have been.
I may be . pardoned for reminding my readers of. my expressed .conviction of many months past that the outstanding and unconquerable difficulty with which business flying wciuld always have to contend .would be the weather. Providence has so far permitted no scientific progress whatever to be made towards securing control of the weather conditions, towards harnessing the winds or tempering the sun's rays. And flying is a mode of travel that is infinitely more unstable than any other method, on or under the sea, on or under the land.
Eliminating weather conditions, the question of flying the Atlantic or indeed of flying round the world is a relatively. simple matter of progress in Mechanical design. There is nothing else to prevent it. But the problem is a vastly different one, when the weather has to be taken into account as the allimportant factor. Highly dangerous as it is to prophesy in all matters of scientific a.dvancement, it appears to the writer a perfectly safe thing to assume that no more control of 'the. weather Will be secured, in ;a hundred Years' time, than it has been since the memorable Biblical days when the few outstanding, if a little doubtful, exarnples of weather control were recorded, in such instanCeS as the persistent downpokir with which Noah and his varied cargo had to .contend. and the occasion of various gigantic droughts which caused acute inconvenience to the enemies of the Israelites and other ancient peoples. The longdraw-out delays delays at Newfoundland recently, with weather controlling the situation entirely, is typical of this damaging criticism. The only palliative possible was the rather patchy wireless communiques reporting weather areas in some parts of the Atlantic. It is the R.A.F. experience in this country that, all the year round, not more than one day in three is really fit for flying.
But the weather is not, by any means, the only 'considerable hindrance to an early boom in commercial aviation. Official and semi-official pronouncements on the subject, for some time past, have been confined entirely to rather "high-falutin" generalities and have entirely disregarded certain facts which must necessarily be taken into account, before the subject can properly be considered in the perspective which glamourless commercialism demands. It will, perhaps, be sufficient for the present purpose if we briefly, consider the new transport from the point of view of cost, so far as it can at present be surmised. Copt is the familiar basis upon which we, at any -rate, are accustomed, in otir -own 'industry, to base. our plans and prospectsand to assess the measure of our success.
Very little practical value attaches to the majority of the figures that have been published by propagandists and company promoters; as to the rates at which goods and passengers can be carried. We may well consider them briefly ourselves, and, in doing so, 1-imagine we shall be able to •eome to a very, practical and definite conclusion as to the immediate scope of aviition from the business point 'of view. I make no apologies for bulling some excellent figures that have-. recentlycom.e my way from a former officer, who is also a man of business attainments and. who has had -access • to first:class data upon which to base his statistics;
The type of machine known as a heavy bomber, which approximates the class of plane that must be used for load carrying of any moment, -costs over
L0,000, while its more suitable but bigger -brother costs double that sum. The rate of loss in France from all causes was approximately CO per cent. per month, and it is fair to assume-the wastage in commercial use will for the present be no less than 100 per cent. per annum. Writing in The Mavehe,ster Guardian recently this informant ;stated that a 'plane requires overhauling after every 120 horn's of flying and the engine after 60 to 80 hours. In six months the 'plane and engine will absorb spares equivalent in value to that of the complete machine. On an average, he continues, not more than one day in three throughout the year is fit for flying. Based on " a flying period" of five hours a day and the high average speed of 00 m.p.h. the total annual mileage amounts to 54,900, with a maximum useful load of tons. Including all costs of operation, aerodrome charges, etc., the cost per ton-mile would work out at 29s. 4d. I This gives a scale of 13s. id. for 1 lb. for 1,000 miles, which might be permissible, but it means over
50 for less than half a ton over the same distance !
Nothing has been written of the danger of flying, which may be discounted, but surely there is sufficient data as to uncertainty due to weather and as to unduly high -cost of operation to render the assumption correct that although there may be some field for the employment of aircraft in the carriage of mails and passengers in specially difficult circumstances, there is . no chance of effective ccmpetition against the ordinary transport traffic of the world. -.Even postal services in this country at any rate do not offer a very promising field ; the distances are relatively short and the aerial terminal delays so great. Postal services must, above all, be reliable, and exceptional speed will only occasionally outweigh the disability of unreliability. Commercial -aviation is most Certainly not likely to fulfil the very indefinite, but highly-coloured, prophecies of those who are, at present, particularly concerned with booming it for purely financial reasons. We can quite safely go on ordering—and waiting for, our less sensational, but far more reliable and infinitely cheaper, commercial motor vehicles £654 for half a ton over 1,000 miles I. Well ! prices are up all round. There is
that about it !