SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1927:
FLYING DAY BY DAY
་
ACROSS PACIFIC.
Japanese Filers Have Eye Ол Ноловен,
Tokyo, Nov. 11. apan is making thorough and ensive preparations to be the ination to fly across the Pacific. fier weeks of study of the pro- ed night a special committee in rge of details has announced t two pilots and two alternates
ots Gota ex
and Suwa
BRITAIN'S CHANCE.
Sir Alan Cobham's Prophecy.
London, Oct. 12. T. Stanhope Sprigg. (Editor of Airways) writes to the "Singapore Free Press'"-
to um-
Many people will remember the amusing drawings which humorous artists used to give us in the early e been selected to fly the big days of aviation. They were pictures ne now being constructed for of all manner of wild and weird effort, and that financing of aircraft dashing about the air, and scheme has been arranged. these aerial monatrosities ranged lota Kaiyeda and Kamel, both from fat commercial gentlemen who led aviators, have been selected had attached themselves first choice for the crew with brellas with convenient little motors.
as alter-mounted
on their frames, aerial is planned to start the flight honom cabs, airships in the form t spring in a hydroplane built of flerce looking dragons, to various this country-making it an all-craft mounted sails and pro- pellers and looked a cross between amejiro Taki, a member of an early steam yacht and a motor-
Japanese Diet from Hyogo car. fecture, has donated 100,000 towards the fund for financing effort. The route for the flight has not finally decided but it prob- will be via Midway, Hawaii San Francisco. The effort is er the auspices of the Imperial ation Society.-United Press.
anese affair.
PRIDE OF ITALY. lant Motorship Ledves Genoa
On First Trip.
Genoa, Nov, 11.
aly's pride, the giant motorship gastus, sailed from here on maiden trip to-day. he "Augustus" is the largest orship ever built.
moment,
It was all very absurd, of course. Most of us laughed at them aa clever dream of the Jules Verne type, but probably not a dozen of us took them, for one seriously, or ever imagined that the days of the private owners of aeroplane could ever dawn within the span of our own lifetimes. Nevertheless these humorous artists built much better than they knew, and what they regarded as a most excellent jest some fifteen years ago has now become our serious prac- tical concern.
.
Who, for example, would dare to put a limit to the periods when most families have their own aero- planes? Will this day dawn within the next five years, ten years, or twenty-five years? Who can tell? I, personally, am one of the optim- ists, and I believe that within the next ten to fifteen years aeroplanes will come into general use for or dinary everyday transport, and I noted the other day that Sir Alan well-known long dis- Cobham, the tanco airman, in a speech he de- livered in Devonshire, was equally! the coast of South America re-enthusiastic. He tied himself to
he was ordered two years ngn the first of a large fleet of these sela to be constructed by the Premier inn Government.
solini personally attended to ordering.
was recently announeed that "Augustus" will be placed on ans-Atlantic run to replace the incessipe Mafalda," which sank
ly with large loss of life-the prediction that in ten years! ted Press.
e.
OLD PRINCIPLES.
Defied By Aeroplane Designers.
time aviation will be as common as motoring is to-day.
UJI
THE
metal Supermarine Southampton fly- ing boats will start on a twenty. five-thousand miles' flight service cruise to Australia and back to Singapore.
CHINA MAIL,
So much, for the flying doctor! Now we are confronted with the fly- ing parson! He is the Rev. Leonard Daniels, rector of Wileannia, New South Wales, a parish as large as England. I remember meeting him some time ago at the London flying club, and he impressed me very much with his zeal, coolness and common sense,
AVIATION BOOM.
VIEWS OF LEO CHIOZZA- MONEY.
SACRIFICES IN PEACE,
After flying round the Australian seaboard the boats will make for Melbourne and then, I am informed,
(To the Editor of the Spectator.) will go back to Singapore, which
Sir, I admire the intrepidity of will be their permanent base. It is
those who, sitting comfortably at atated that they will then become He told me, and some of my home and knowing as little of the the nucleus of the Air Force in the press colleagues, that hitherto it.has mechanism of aeroplanes and air- Far East, which; with the head-been impossible, owing to the lack ships as they do of their electric co- of road and rall communication, light systems, talk of man's in- quarters at Singapore, will operate with the Australian Air for him to visit all his parishioners domitable soul, and of the world's
Service.
Three
The
Pacific adventures have had bare The machine will be painted record here, but the fate of Miss silver with purple struts, and will Doran has apparently aroused some
for bear the words "Church of Eng-Indignation in America. As land."
the Atlantic dozen, I do not belleve "I Am Levine.”
that there is a single reader of
even in a twelve-month. With the great need to make vicarious sacri. There seems to be general agree-Moth he will be able to reach the fice upon the altars of a Progress ment among British experts that farthest corner of his huge parlah which ought never to be printed vastly more service is done to avla in a few hours, and thus many without a capital "P." tion by Empire flights of this sort weeks of valuable time now consum-columne in the morning paper for than the trans-Atlantic flights by ed in cross-country travelling will at least nine days are promised to which we have been recently thrill-be saved. The funds for the pur-any man or woman who will fly ed. Very soon now our Imperial chase of the machine, which will the Atlantic, and three lines for air routes will have to be worked also be used to carry medical three days to any man or woman either by glant flying boats or air assistance to scattered farms, and who will perish in attempting to ships and certainly not by the homesteads, have been raised by By the Atlantic. In a few months medium-powered land 'planes that collections during a six-months lec- the Atlantic has engulfed a dozen have recently been setting up all the ture tour which Mr. Daniels has daring men and one weruan, while récorda. As a matter of fact, these made in England under arrange- the Pacific has accounted for half- "Southampton" flying boats de ments made by the Colonial and axlozen men and one woman. Anitely give us the lead in flying Continental Church Society. beat construction. They are, I am told, the cause of envy and con- aiderable gnashing of teeth abroad, for they could, If it were wished and the Air Ministry were so disposed, easily achieve all the records in I hope I am betraying no con- those lines who, any more than my- their particular class-it is rumour-fidence when I tell the world that self, could write down their names ed, have already done so in secret. that arch comedian of aviation, Mr. without error. The great flood of What amazes our foreign friends Levine, the American financier, has current news washes out their most, however, in their extra-left few regrets by his sudden memory as surely as the ocean wash- ordinary seaworthiness, for they determination to return to "God's ed out their lives. I suppose that can ride out quite rough seas in own country." He has, of course, in days in which a man, woman, or safety.
been flying all over Europe us a child is killed on our roads every kind of uncrowned Air King of hour, it is almost unseemly to make America, landing promiscuously, too much fuss about the elision of refusing to produce any passports, a dozen human beings. and meeting all demands with the Let us ask ourselves seriously magic words "I am Levine."
+
Bombing 'Planes. Tests are being carried out by the Air Ministry with a bombing 'plane that can carry a full-size torpedo and nearly three and a half tons of petrol and yet can travel at ground level at a speed of a hundred-and- twenty-five miles per hour. This machine would almost certainly utterances upon the subject, that
It is lucky, however, that he decided to abandon his flight as his
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A "land catapult" constructed on the end of a pier for the use ol green navy pilots to familiarise them with the proper method of Laking off from the deck of a ship. From a standing start com- pressed air shoots the 'plane from the steel finger 40 feet long at a speed of 50 miles an hour.'
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much-vaunted German (commer- cial), system, which is hopefully sub- sidised for future war reasona, nearly burned several people to death, and as far as I could see only one English newspaper recorded the horrible fact.
whether aviation is worth the bones of a single human being. It ap pears to be assumed, in a thousand
Ridiculous Comparison. The aeroplané, again, is at the Science has solved the problem of
mercy of storm and darkness and Alight, and that all that remains is
fog as never seamen were even in to make improvement. We con-
the earliest days of navigation. It atantly see the auggestion made is ridiculous to compare the aero- that the lives of aviators are not
plane flights across the Atlantic with given in vain, and that when their
the sailing of the 'Santa Maria. machines crash or crumple, the
The 'Santa Maria' had not to be consequent deaths, often by burn-packed up and sent home again. ing, are not spent uselessly because aviation has a great commercial future. A great thought for any day, that. What if a nice boy or two be burned alive every week if mankind is to gain commercially?
The 'Santa Maria was not to be sent to the bottom by the mere
touch of an accompanying ship. in a storm. Science can promise The 'Santa Maria' could shorten sall nothing in the way of elimination
LONG FLIGHTS.
DECLARATION OF BALTIMORE "SUN" DIRECTOR.
AFTER TRIP TO JAVA.
Declaring himself convinced that long distance flying is practicable even in the present stage of air- craft development, Van Lear Black, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore "Sun," Europe returned recently from where in June' he flew from Glas gow, Scotland, to: Batavia,
Java, and thence back to Amsterdam, Holland, in twenty seven flying days.
Mr. Black was met at the pier by Commander Richard E. Byrd, U. S.
the United States. Accompanying N., and a delegation from the aeronautic chamber of commerce. of Black were the two Dutch pilots; who were with him on his flight to
I suggest here, in the plainest of factors which mean death and language, that the economic argu-destruction to aviators. These India, O. J. Geysendorffer, chief ment has no foundation whatever, factors are inherent, and will re-pilot and J. B. Scholte. that aviation has as yet no sound main so. If man were naturally a The Baltimore publisher said he scientific basis, and that nothing flying animal, and desired to would not use his own flight in ad- has been done either with sero-transport goods or passengers con- pianes or "airships" that gives the alightest encouragement to the argument that flying will ever, be worth while commercially.
vancing the expansion of commier einl aviation in New York, but will do what he can "to promote interest on the development of avin- tion, as an individual and not as a
veniently, quickly, and safely, it would be necessary for him to in- vent the plane surfaces of land and sea which are now, fortunately, at propagandist." .hís disposal.
he inventors claim for the new He hopes to boat Chamberlin's re- can travel at a hundred miles per that "Doc" Kinkead who "doctored done at public expense. The British atorm. The terrible fate of the of Nassau and Orange by Queen
Wanted-Air Records. Meanwhile, it is interesting to observe that we are waking up here in England to the importance of annexing some air records our UWA account. There is, for rinciples which have thus far
regarded as axiomatic by example the case of Captain R. H. plane designers have been stood Macintosh, the daring pilot, who, head by the firm of Focke-Wulf undismayed by the fogs which had
end to put a sudden
his 'flight Bremen in the construction of a
Type of heavier-than-air ma-across the Atlantic from the East to the West, has now turned his he new plane gives the im-face in the opposite direction and Salon of flying backward, for is to set out on a four thousand controls are in front and the
miles, or longer non-stop trip or and wings behind. The pilot
across Southern Europe to India. s in the direction of the tail.
saw him yesterday known as "duck" that it cord, and when
me that he was quite The Americans are not backward fates any possibility of cap- he assured
g.. More important still, they undaunted by the aerial terrors, in this direction, for a bombing ma- the brakes can be applied real and imaginary, of the Persian chine has just been completed for lenly and quickly when the Gulf, which claimed Flt. Lt. Carr's the American Army Service for e reaches the ground without machine when he attempted which a speed of a hundred and danger of its turning a somer similar feat some weeks ago. Nor sixteen miles per hour is claimed t. This is of inestimable value
can. It have escaped notice that Bri- and which, when fully loaded with he case of forced landings on tigh light aeroplanes are also being bombs, will weigh over seven and a hen the "duck" was demon-used, in ever increasing number, to quarter tons. This is said to be the largest all-metal machine in the Director Wulf set up valuable 'British records, recently ted and showed his confidence There no doubt, however, of world. The tendency of many coun- estability of his invention by the fact that Flight-Lieut. Webster, tries now, however, is to concen- ing his arms and letting the in winning the Schneider trophy trate on big bombers. hine run alone for a while.
for Great Britain at a speed of Nevertheless, it is only fair to 281.49 miles per hour has set the add that many experts consider the authorities on their mettle. Many big-bomber policy unsound and that friends of aviation in this country the low speed of these machines, would like to see the British Air their lack of manoeuvrability and addition to 13,976 miles on the Ministry go seriously after the their expense are grave disadvan- h-Derby route, the mileage on international height record now that tages., This school pins Its faith to lal trips carried out in Septem- the egregious French pretender has the fast small bomber carrying only
totalled 5,105, including visits been exposed, for it is a record that one bomb. Kalgoorlie, Southern Cross, la much coveted. We already hold it
Flying Parsons. redin, Kellerbarrin, Meckering, in the light 'plane field, and if we tham, Bencubbin and Wyalkat- could only gain it in the unlimited
11 felds.
ted
AUSTRALIAN AIRWAYS.
1.
party of business men, finding ecessary to return to Perth as dy as possible after a country made arrangements to be ed up at Mingenew by 'plane. 200-mile trip to the City was mplished in less than two hours, habling the passengers to keep Intments which would other-
have been impossible.
WELCOME TO FLIERS.
New York, Nov. 11.
is metropolis to-day roared a ome to Ruth Elder and Capt. ge Haldeman who were rescued mid-ocean recently after the re of their trans-Atlantle to Paris, Broadway was with thousands of cheering le as the aviators were escort- their hotel.Associated Press.
NEW AIR FIGHTER.
London, Oct. 24 eAir Ministry is at present g a new amphibious fighter Can alight either on deck on. Titleship or "on" the · water
His called Parmall-Napier. and la. intended for, recon- › work and for reporting. Seless the effect of gunfire from
ture forth!
Alleged Commercial Aviation.
He went to Europe last March, It is perfectly true that in As for the airship, science can and did much flying in his Fokker several countries some thousands of promise nothing to those who hope plane until mid-June when he de- passengers and hundreds of tons of to make safe a big gas-bag; filled cided, against expert advice, to machine was originally built as 赴 have been forced to alight on the cargo are carried through the air with hydrogen or helium and carry motor was installed and he set off make the India, flight. A new high altitude bomber and can climb Atlantic. It was evidently some-
In a year; but those interested take ing by suspension an engined vessel. on June 15. He was the first Ameri- to a height of twenty thousand feet, what the worse for its arduous,
care not to remind the public that The more ambitious the gas-bag. can to make the Far East aerial- or nearly four miles, and even then experiences, and it is significant this alleged commercial aviation is the smaller its chance of riding the cruise, and was awarded the order hour.
their engine, and whose boast is
Laxpaper pays part of the fare of
American Shenandoah and the Wilhelmina for his feat. that no engine treated by him has every passenger who flies from Lon- official report upon it should be
Stops were made at Constantino- ever failed, left a note behind him ten to Paris. Did rallways thus read and re-read by every comfort-ple, Allenpo and Bagdad. The For- telling them on no account to ven-begin, or steamships? The answerable person who is willing to offer sian Gulf then was crossed and he proceeded to Allahabad, Calcutta, is that railways and steamships made up the lives of other people in As usual, however, he figured to their own way, and were left to make hopeless cause."
Rangoon, Singapore and Batavia in We may hope that swift succession, the flight requir- the end
As the Playboy of the Western World, for when he de- their own way, on their merits, it has been read and re-read by ing eighty six flying hours, and
while commercial aviation would the designers of the two mysterious ending on June 30. parted from Vienna he wore the
British airships which, at enorm- collapse like a gasbag (ie., like an
Besides encountering monsoons Italian Fascist Party emblem in airship) if submitted for a single ous cost and in great secrecy, are and sandstorms on the trip, Black's his buttonhole and declared that month to economic forces.
Burma, now a-building. Some day, doubt-plane, in taking off from The truth is that commercial avia- less, they will emerge, and some which charged out of the jungle. he had received the emblem from
barely elcared a herd of elephants the secretary of the Italian Fascist tion is subsidised for military rea- day a little later they will duly kill The undercarriage skimmed Rome Party. There is internationalism sons, and that the aviation boom is those we employ to "navigate" eight feet over the animals' broad. for you! Wha & priceless asset full of promise, not for commerce, them.
backs, Black said. to the League of Nations!
and not for progress, but for the And it should not be forgotten Handicaps were met in Turkey, most cowardly and hideous forms that the airship cannot, any more where a special permit was requir- of warfare.
than the aeroplane, stop her the country. A day was also lost ed before the plane could fly over Let me sum up the facts with re-gines. It is true that her gas su here because the Turks do not per- gards to
the aeroplane. Heavier- tains her in the air, but she can mit flying on Sunday, Black assert- than-air machines are sustained in only maintain stability by motioned, adding that aviators still are re- the air by their engines. They derived from her engines. Thus must go on, or come down. They are inherently without stability. It fs. I suppose, common know- ledge that one or two doctors in
Consequently, they are grossly over- burdened with fuel at the beginning class, we should certainly believe Australia with wide flung, practices
of their journeys, and that is why that we had something to write to have recently provided themselves the British Dominions about. with aeroplanes. Indeed, I am 28- The Aeronautical correspondent we have the ridiculous suggestion Popularly, the Schneider Cup is aured that a scheme is now afoot of the "Daily Mail anys that the that artificial felands should be
"I word an ordinary lounge suit supposed to have cost us a hundred to extend this sort of flying and to first test of the new aeroplane fitted made in the Atlantic to enable precise parallel. The submarine 18 thousand pounds to annex, but the organise a proper aeroplane ser- with anti-spin slotted wings basaeroplanes to do the thing in hops. now an ancient commonplace to the when flying and carried my allot- The aeroplane was made possible unimaginative mind. Its working ment of about 80 pounds of cloth- height record could, of course, be vice which will cover the Bush in been tried successfully. gained with a very much smaller systematic fashion. Even in Bri- The pilot deliberately stalled the by the invention of the internal is understood by few members of ing and equipment," he continued, cost than that.
tish Guiana a plantation company machine seemed to be in imminent combustion engine, which demands the public who now and then read "The plane had two comfortable a British, chairs, in which two of us could Off to the Far East.
has already installed a 'plarie, fit- peril of spinning and crashing, the employment of highly inflam- of the sad fate of
sleep while the third was at the French, or One of the greatest Empire flights ted up as an ambulance to rush But he actually defied all previous mable fuel. The aeroplane is thus American, German, ever planned will begin at Calshot fever cases back to civilisation in a experience, dropped down nose, re-always in terrible danger, for if it Italian submarine crew. The sub-stick. We did not attempt to cook in the plane, but took with us hot can cross the Atlantic drinks in thermos bottles." on October 17 when four all-fraction of the time taken by boat. gained speed and landed in the crashes it is more than likely that marine
the occupants will be promptly
The well-known Danish sportsman, Director Thoratrap, expert in aircraft, motors and yachting, has constructed this flying motorboat The motor is a Mercedes Acro Machine of 150 ELP. and the boat is air-propelled. It has been driven up to a speed of 150, kilometres an
We in Europe return Mr. Levine to the United States with compli ments-and with thanks.
SAFETY DEVICE.
Experiment With Anti-Spin Slotted Wing.
London, Oct. 24.
ordinary way.
neroplanes and airships alike lack Inherently, the first factor of rea sonable safety, and science has not as much as approached the solution of this main problema.
1
A Precise Parallel. The case of the submarine le a
The device is the outcome of burned alive if they survive the Continued at foot of next column. eight years' experimenta and con- fall. Thus, the other day, the
alats of curved surfaces lying snug.
ly in front of the edge of the wings, but moving ahead of them. When the wing drops the action is almost automatic. Air pressure forces the extension of the planes forward providing an extra grip upon the air, and enabling the pilot to dip the nose and restore the dying speed,
Experts express the opinion that this is the most important develop mont since the art of flying WAS acquired. It should eliminate 95 per cent of the crashes which now
ocenr.
An Austro-French Aviation Con vention has been signed, abollah. Ing the restrictions of the Aut trian aviation industry, as recently I done in the case of GoIma
Britaia's only all-metal-doing use: on the oversen linki ulatho
ting Britain with "Australia-ent equipped with a kitchen, from
garded as more or less supernatural creatures in the Orient Sand- storms caused an additional delay of two days at Bagdad.
Commenting on his flight, which set a record for a Europe-to India trip. Black said that "never at any time, even with forced landings, were. we in danger."
under the water; it could carry passengers and cargo across the Atlantic if auboldised, but it is not and never will be an economic in- strument It is remarkable that, like the air, vassel, it is a deadly thing in time of peace. Its only real use is in war and in war it' does horrible things. The British Empire was nearly smashed by the submarins, and the bones of thou- sands of torpedoed British Reamen lle deep in the waters which once defended but no longer bf this island. Thus also will aeroplane and the Valrah commerce, no. For yar, yes.
why rival A Ministries, go the
of deliberately, oncourng crifice of gallant boy.
That is the