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M. 704
A Year's Civil Aviation.
Air Ministry's Report.
By Joseph Martin.
It is perhaps natural that the recent tremendous expansion in British military aviation should have overshadowed developments
which have taken place during the year on the civil side of flying. The Air Kinistry's official Report on Civil Aviation in 1938, which
has just appeared comes, therefore, as a welcome reminder that,
simply as a means of communication, flying is serving the purposes
of peace and good-will among all peoples.
Great expansion was recorded in British civil flying during 1938, on Empire routes, within the British Isles, and on routes to other countries. Altogether British commercial aircraft covered
over 13 million route miles - distances equivalent to more than
540 times round the world. This is an increase on the previous
year of nearly 3 million miles. Naturally the greatest expansion
has taken place on Empire routes, perhaps the most significant event being the inauguration of the Empire Air Mail scheme last summer, when mail was despatched for the first time by air direct
from Britain to Australia.
It is on the mail routes that the greatest developments have taken place, the increase in mail ton-miles being from under 4
million in 1937 to 9,335,000 in 1938. The normal weekly average
of mail carried from Britain to the Empire is 19 tons, but during last Christmas season this load rose to nearly 35 tons per week.
Indeed, no less than 170 tons of first-class mail went by air from Great Britain to the Dominions and Colonics between the 16th
of November and the 20th of December. No other air transport ser-
vice in the world has had to cope with the carriage of such loads
over such distances as these.
While the passenger miles and freight ton-miles both in- creased, the former from 49 millions to 34 millions and the
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