THIS ILLUSTRATION is taken from the cover of a handy little book which tells you all you want to know about the Flying at Hendon. A copy will be forwarded post free to any address on application to The London Aerodrome Offices, 166, Piccadilly, London, W. SPECIAL ARTICLES IN PROGRAMMES. During the present season each weekly Programme has contained an instructive article on some aviation subject. A number of programmes containing the following articles have been reprinted, and copies can be obtained from the London Aerodrome Offices, 165, Piccadilly, for 1d. each, post free. 1. Portrait and Career of Louis Noel. Biography of Wilbur Wright. "The Wright Biplane" (Illustrated). 2. Portrait and Career of Jules Nardini. "Fling Weather, by Miss M. L. Eliot. 3. Portrait and Career of Lieut. Porte. "The Deperdussin Monoplane" (Ilustrated). 4. ortrait and Career of Rebt. Slack. "The Morane-Saulnier Monoplane" (Illustrated) 5, Portrait and Career of H. M. Brock. 6 Portrait and Career of Sydney Pickles. "The Evolution of the Monoplane" (Illustrated). 7. Portrait and Career of Marcus D. Manton. "How Aeroplanes Fly." 8 Portrait and Career of Norman Spratt. "Aviation Terms and Expressions." (Illustrated). 9. Portrait and Career of G. Lee Temple. "Aeroplane Types" (Illustrated). 10. Portrait and career of Claude GrahameWhite. "How an Airman learns to Fly." T HOSE who have followed flying for the last year or two know that 1911 and 1912 were perhaps more full of interest than any other period of the history of modern flight. Many important and historic contests and events were held, most of them at Hendon, and a record of the Hendon events is practically a record of British flying events during that period. This record is contained in the fascinating little book, "Flying at Hendon," which gives interesting and accurate accounts of the First Aerial Post, the First Aerial Derby, the First Night Flying demonstration, and other important happenings. Many famous aviators have flown at Hendon, and their portraits are given in this book. Much other useful information, intensely interesting to the aviation student, is also included. Copies of this book can be obtained from the London Aerodrome Offices, 166, Piccadilly, London, W., at 7d. each, post free. Printed for THE AEROPLANE AND GENERAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED, by BONNER & Co., The Chancery Lane Press, Rolls Passage, London, E.C.; and Published by WM. DAWSON & SONS, LIMITED, at Rolls House, Breams Buildings, London. Branches in Canada, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg; in South Africa: Capetown, Johannesburg, and Durban. The Seaplane Circuit and Other Things. At the moment everyone's interest is centred in the Daily Mail seaplane competition which opens on Saturday. Given good weather, there are hopes that someone will get round the course, though last week one of the best pilots in this country was freely offering 10 to 1 against anyone completing the distance, and considerably more against anyone doing it in the specified time of 72 hours. The achievement involves flying some 500 miles a day, which ought to be possible if the engines hold out, and the course is comparatively free from danger if the competitors have any luck with the weather. A gale over the mountains along the Caledonian Canal would not be pleasant, and a nor'-wester along the Scottish or Welsh coast would be dangerous if an engine broke down. There are some parts of the course where competitors will be a long way from shore; but, if they cross from the Mull of Kintyre to Ireland, and keep to the Irish coast as far as Rosslare Point before crossing to Fishguard, they will be well in sight of land all the way, and will lose no distance by doing so. The worst piece is from Milford to the Cornish coast; but, if any of them are lost through getting out of sight of land, it will be their own fault. Still, I should recommend all of them to carry a long fishing-rod and a large light flag for use as a distress signal in case of being blown out to sea. The fact that there are only three competitors, now that we have lost Mr. Cody, is certainly disappointing; but it is not the fault either of British constructors or of the "Daily Mail." The reason is simply that peculiar muddle-headed officialdom which is the curse of the industry and of aerial defence. The "Mail" announced the competition in ample time, but no one was going to build a machine for it until it was made clear that the Home Office sanctioned it under the Aerial Navigation Act, and that sanction came too late for most people. The promoters of the race might reasonably have expected entries from the Bristol Co., A. V. Roe and Co., the British Deperdussin Co., and Vickers, Ltd.; but three of these firms are too busy on definite orders, after a long struggle to get them, to spend time and money on a purely sporting chance of winning the seaplane circuit. The Deperdussin Co., like the Flanders Co., owing to bad luck, and brutally unfair treatment by the Royal Aircraft Factory, are in the condition generally known as "broke." Messrs. Trotter and Gnosspelius, who have a particularly promising waterplane just completed on Windermere, and the Lakes Flying Co., the pioneers of water flying in England, frankly admit they cannot afford the expense of such a competition. The British Bréguet Co. are in the hands of a receiver, when, under better management at the start, they ought to have been in a position by now to have entered a British copy of Moineau's famous 200-h.p. seaplane. British-built Farmans, Blériots, Caudrons, or Borels would have been forthcoming if the Army had encouraged those firms to open works in this country. The result is that we see two busy firms, Short Bros. and the Sopwith Co., building machines at the last moment for the race, simply because Mr. McClean and Mr. Sopwith are sportsmen, and Mr. England is able to enter because Mr. Radley, also a sportsman, made up his mind they would build a waterplane for fun, months before the competition was announced. However, here we are with only three entries, and, apparently as a result, the "Daily Mail" grows peevish, and proceeds to abuse the unfortunate British constructor for his backwardness in coming forward. Those who know Lord Northcliffe realise that, besides being a great financier, he is a thorough sportsman and a sincere believer in the necessity for aerial defence, so that his magnificent prizes are absolutely the outcome of a genuine desire to encourage the development of aeroplanes in this country, both as sporting machines and as arms for both the Services. But he is a man of many great affairs, and obviously cannot personally superintend all the details of his schemes to this end. It is therefore the greater pity that he should have been so indifferently served by those to whom he has been compelled to delegate the work. The attacks on the hardly used British industry which appeared in the "Times " and the "Daily Mail" last week simply add journalistic insult to official injury. They might, indeed, be highly diverting if we all had the same keen sense of the ludicrous as was possessed by the sporting rebel of the '45 who was consumed with laughter at the antics of his executioner when that worthy, in striking the traditional terrifying attitude of his profession with hands crossed on the haft of his axe, incontinently dropped the blade on his own most tender toe. A Diverting Incident. The position of the "Mail" is indeed peculiar. In a praiseworthy effort to encourage British industry recently, certain people connected with that paper interested themselves in the production of an allBritish waterplane which was to be used for exhibition purposes round the coast. Now, if they had gone to, say, the Bristol Co., or Mr. Short, or Mr. Roe, or Mr. Sopwith, or Mr. Ewen, and had asked for a British waterplane of ordinary design, they could have had it in a few weeks, and, with such pilots available as Messrs. Busteed, Raynham, Pickles, Hawker, Sippe, and others less known to the public, but well known to us on the inside of things, they could have made an excellent show. Instead, they went to M. Salmet, who had original ideas on flyingboats. Whether they financed him or not, matters but little. The point is that they waited for his machine to fly. Now, M. Salmet is a first-class pilot, skilful, fearless, and always cheerful--but he is not an engineer. His mechanical training was obtained in the Blériot School sheds at Hendon, which, thanks to lack of official encouragement from the British War Office, and consequent lack of finance from France, are not the British Blériot Factory which might have been. Consequently he could not be expected to turn out a successful waterplane at once. He had an excellent A.B.C. engine of 100 h.p. and Avro wings, but wings and engine alone do not make a flying machine. Consequently time passed; no flying machine came forth. A Mr. Valentine Smith, understood to be connected with the "Mail,” visited Brooklands and viewed M. Salmet's progress, but still the machine did not fly. Consequently, as some flying had to be done, we now find M. Salmet, "the 'Daily Mail' airman," engaged on another "allforeign" advertising tour on a wholly excellent but unnecessary 80-h.p. Blériot. So do the best-laid schemes of mice and "Daily Mails" gang agley. But why grow peevish with British constructors when by asking advice, which would be given with the best of good-will, from those who know something about British aeroplanes, all this disappointment could have been avoided? The axe need not have dropped on the executioner's toe. The "Times" and the R.A.F. Elsewhere in this paper, Mr. Whittaker deals in his own way with the attitude of the "Times," but some of the circumstances surrounding the aeronautical articles in that paper may be of interest. There was a time, before he became a Government official, when Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, now Superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory and Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, contributed many able articles of high interest to that paper on the subject of motoring and, I believe, on aeronautics also. More recently Mr. Hubert Walter, a son of the former sole proprietor of the "Times" and a personal friend of Mr. O'Gorman's, has written much on aeronautical subjects in that paper. It is but natural that Mr. Walter, being thus in touch with the Royal Aircraft Factory and not intimately in touch with the independent aeroplane constructors, should be prejudiced in one direction, just as I, being-I trust I may claim the privilege-personally friendly with every aeroplane manufacturer in this country, and purposely avoiding contact with the staff of Mr. O'Gorman's factory, may also be prejudiced in favour of my friends. Perhaps I may here be permitted to reiterate a recent statement of mine that I have the greatest admiration for Mr. O'Gorman personally, and only regret that other calls on his time do not permit him to be constantly at the Royal Aircraft Factory, where he is compelled to delegate important duties to underlings, who succeed merely in making themselves exceedingly offensive in their ill-bred endeavours to assert their authority as servants of the public, and who unfortunately manage to persuade those holding offices above them that the products of ideas they steal from independent aeroplane designers. superior to the products of those designers, despite the fact that every performance of the Factory machines is in due course beaten by machines turned out at a fraction of the expense by those makers so freely contemned by Government officials and Lord Northcliffe's papers alike. are One cannot believe that Mr. Walter wrote the article in the "Times," for he is a gentleman first and a journalist afterwards; nor do I suggest for a moment that Mr. O'Gorman himself inspired the offensive articles in either paper; but where the principals are on comparatively intimate terms it seems reasonable to suppose that the minor officials are not unacquainted with one another, and so it may well come about that these papers may draw their distorted facts from those very persons who have already done so much to injure the growth of the aeroplane industry in order to aggrandise themselves. Journalistic Accuracy. It However, leaving that out of the question, the accuracy of the "Daily Mail's " information, even on naval subjects, may be gauged from various of the statements made. It says that "the Admiralty will also give the advice of its expert designers for the help of able firms." Now, the Admiralty has no "designers," and does not profess to know everything about aeroplanes, as is the custom with the Royal Aircraft Factory. has, however, various exceedingly able engineers whose critical sense has condemned certain B.E.'s built by the R.A.F., though neither the "Times" nor the "Mail" mentions this interesting point. The "Mail" refers to "Messrs. Vickers, Son, Limited," when the correct style of the firm is "Vickers, Ltd.," and calls the Whitehead firm "Whithead and Co." It states that "the Navy only possesses two airships, the German-built Parseval and the French-built Astra-Torres. These airships have been doing excellent work." Whereas, in fact, the Astra-Torres has not yet been taken over by the Navy, not having finished her tests after her little escapade at Farnborough. cases. the In criticising the British aeroplane firms, "Mail" states that "the chief fault is lack of engineering brains and faulty organisation." If we had waited for "engineering brains" to work, we should never have had bicycles or motor-cars, let alone aeroplanes. Engineers of high standing have proved over and over again that a flying machine is an impossibility and that a bicycle could not carry a man's weight. "Faulty organisation" is due solely to lack of money in most You cannot organise a factory on an order for half a dozen machines wanted in a hurry, when no more orders are forthcoming for six months. The big armament firms would do no better, for they cannot put mechanics or fitters on to build aeroplanes as a side-line; and, if the big firms get the orders, they also must have continuity of orders, or they cannot organise their aeroplane departments and train their men. As a prize example of faulty organisation without any cause except original sin, commend me to the Royal Aircraft Factory. It is true, as the Mail says, that "it is quite impossible to give an order for, say, six machines when the firm cannot produce a single machine of any value." But it is equally impossible to produce a machine of any value when a firm is tied down by impossible provisions as to weight, surface, and speed. One firm, A. V. Roe and Co., Ltd., who failed at their first attempt to produce a satisfactory waterplane to a certain specification, and were practically condemned for it, promptly produced a highly successful machine to their own ideas, and immediately sold it to Germany. The "small number of 'seaplane' manufacturers," of which the "Mail" complains, is primarily due to lack of finance, for which the War Office is to blame, owing to its " spasmodic orders," which in turn were due to spasmodic money," as General Henderson plainly stated months ago. The "Mail' announces as a piece of news, as if the decision had just been made, that "four great firms" are now definitely entering the aeroplane business. The following are the firms. Vickers, |