There is, however, practically no limit to the expansion on the naval side. The full equipment of the naval air stations round our own coasts will absorb something like a couple of hundred machines and their crews. Then the fleets at sea will have to be provided with machines and pilots. Then our naval bases abroad will need their own air stations. The prospect should be alluring to those who are spending their energies on trying to produce efficient seaplanes, especially in view of the sympathetic support they have received from the Admiralty. Incidentally I do not think that if the Navy set up an aeronautical dockyard of its own anyone would be either surprised or alarmed, so long as it was run by officers and gentlemen, and was intended to do the work which the naval dockyards do at present. For airship work, particularly, such an establishment is becoming a necessity. In this connection it will be interesting to see what happens at the Royal Aircraft Factory when the Navy take over the dirigibles, for obviously they cannot remain at Farnborough. With this enormous expansion another problem arises namely, the supply of pilots. It has often been pointed out that the Navy, always short of officers, cannot supply all the pilots who will be needed, and it seems that there should be an opening for civilians of the right class. It seems reasonable to assume that a civilian who is accepted, as several have been, for short service as an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve, and who devotes his spare time during that period to educating himself in general naval matters so that he is capable of taking duty as a watch-keeper, will not be cast from the Service at the end of his term. When every ship carries its three or four, or a dozen, aeroplanes and pilots, and when those pilots are required to take their turn in the routine work of the ship, things will be very different from their present state. To give them their due, very few pilots in either service pose as any special kind of hero, and it will not be long before one finds in the Navy List among the officers of any ship a few whose names are followed by a simple (A), indicating that they are there for air service, just as (N), (G), and (T) indicate navigation, gunnery, and torpedoes respectively. The big airships will, of course, each be a ship in His Majesty's Service, like any sea-going ship, and here we may expect developments at least as rapid as we have seen in the Submarine Service. These developments may well cost more, and show less for the money spent, than the developments in aeroplanes, but we must go ahead with them all the same and be prepared to stand the racket. As Mr. Churchill said of the whole Air Service, "You will have to make up your minds to spend year after year your money, and month after month to pay toll of precious life." There is, however, the consolation that, provided it is spent properly, the more money is spent the less will be the toll of life, either in peace or war. The more we spend in developing aeroplanes the safer will flying become, and the bigger our Air Service grows the less will be the chance of war, with its consequent loss of life, for in preparation Mr. for war lies the surest guarantee of peace. Churchill is young for his position, but he has the energy of youth and its enthusiasm. Not even the youngest of us is infallible, and Mr. Churchill will make mistakes, but he is a Churchill-except such proportion of him as is American-and he is clever enough to learn from the mistakes of others and to profit by his own. May he, as a constructive statesman, succeed where mere politicians have failed. At any rate, in his efforts he will have the whole-hearted support of the Navy, and of the best men of the Army. C. G. G. Forewarned and Forearmed.-II. The more one considers possible causes of accidents the more extraordinary it seems that most accidents ever happen at all, and one can only attribute the constant recurrence of accidents through the same causes to two chief facts. The first is that many aeroplane designers do not fly themselves, or at any rate have not flown for so long that they do not realise the difference between the conditions surrounding the efficient machines of to-day and those they used to fly three or four years ago. Consequently they are much more concerned with theories which will help them to get a few miles more per hour with the same horse-power, or to lift an extra pound or so per square foot of surface, than they are with the minor points which cause the majority of accidents. They are keen enough on having their cables strong enough to stand the loads, and on having spars stout enough to stand compression and bending stresses, and are generally sufficiently sound on those things that can be worked out with formulæ and slide-rules, but when one goes over their machines in detail one is almost forced to the conclusion that they never look at a complete aeroplane, or at any rate that they never inspect it with the idea of reasoning out what will happen if something goes wrong with some small fitting for which they may not be responsible. Bravery in the Office. Their attitude was nicely summed up the other day by cne of our best pilots. I was looking at the hinge of a rear spar, it was a warping wing machine, and remarked that there did not seem to be enough metal in it. "It's all right, said the pilot, "they've worked it all out, and they tell me there is a factor of safety of five to one, and that there is only a compression load on it." Then he added, quietly, It's quite easy to be brave in the drawing office." There you have the root of many troubles. If designers trusted more to the eyes of practical men for their crosssections, and more to the hands of pilots for the camber, and angles, of their surfaces, and the disposition of their weights, we should have fewer accidents of certain kinds, though, of course, it would be quite as dangerous to trust the whole of the manufacturing work to pilots and rule-of-thumb mechanics. Neither the formulatic designer nor the tricksome pilot should ever be the works manager. The successful works manager is he who watches as much flying as he can, and afterwards knows how to set the theorists off against the practical men, so that he finds the viam mediam in which the aviator can go tutissime-to paraphrase the old tag. The Great God Chance. The other chief cause of accidents is the carelessness of the pilots. They trust too much to luck, on the old principle that if there is to be a smash the odds are against it happening "this time." One of the earliest of pilots, Mr. Harry Houdini, who was the first man to fly in Australia, v rote from Stuttgart a few days ago :-"Do you know that I believe most of the fliers are killed through their own lack of attention to their machines? I have seen them time and time again go home for lunch, and, without even looking at their machines, have the propeller turned and away they would go when they returned to the field. It seems awful to me, but, then, perhaps, being one of the early school I am behind the times." There is a great deal in Mr. Houdini's opinion. One cannot recall any fatal accident in this country which has been proved to be due to a machine going up in a defective state but there have been several narrow escapes-one quite recently, owing to a mechanic neglecting to tighten up a tail plane though expressly told to do so. In America, in Germany, and in France there have been several men killed through flying on machines which were unsafe because of age or neglect. Undoubtedly the average pilot trusts too much to his mechanics, and, though one could mention numerous mechanics, men like Messrs. Palassy, Stronach, Knight, Carr, Gondre, Warren, Possardet, Turner, Alcock, Trinaman, and others-some of them pilots themselves-who are much more to be trusted with the care of a machine or its engine than any pilot for whom they might be working, nevertheless, a pilot is simply asking for trouble if he does not go all over his machine himself at least once a day, and if possible every time he is starting for a flight. The Need for Inspection. One seldom hears, in these days, of a broken wheel or axle on a railway coach, yet at the chief stopping places on our railways a man goes round each train as it comes in, tapping the tyres with a hammer to detect cracks, feeling the hubs to see if there is any sign of a hot box, and looking into the grease containers to ensure a proper supply of lubricant. There ought to be a similar inspection of every aeroplane every time it touches the ground. The jar of even the best of landings may fracture a bolt holding a wire, so that when the machine goes up again the wire may fly back and break the propeller, or get tangled in the control-wires, or a strut or socket may crack in landing, and many other things may happen which careful inspection would disclose before any harm could occur. Mechanics who inspected machines regularly would be able to go all over them in a few minutes, and no time would be wasted. As it is, at any aerodrome, one sees a machine come down, the pilot and passenger (a fare or a pupil) climb out, the mechanics hang round and smoke cigarettes, unless they have to perform the arduous duties of filling up with petrol. In due course another passenger and a pilot climb in, a mechanic swings the propeller, and away they go quite happily. If anything casts loose they come down-and it is truly wonderful how many things can come loose or break in the air without anyone being killed. If something breaks in landing and does not actually fall out of place, it is simply a matter of luck whether anyone happens to see it or not. Examples of Carelessness. Ever so long ago I pointed out the danger pilots run by landing and then starting off again without stopping, and instanced the fates of at least two French officers who, before M. Blériot reinforced the lower "planche" of his chassis, were killed through making bad landings, which cracked the planche, and then going straight up again, with the result that the chassis collapsed in the air and allowed the wings to fold up. Yet only the other day one of our leading pilots, carrying a young lady of title as passenger on a very fast monoplane, made a rather bad landing on rough ground, which so displeased him that he went straight off gain and had another try. The bump might easily have cracked a fuselage longitudinal, or have broken a wire, even though in this machine the chassis is independent of the wing stays, but, of course, such a possibility is the last thing a popular pilot would ever think about. 2 days ago, when the pilot of a biplane with a front elevator broke twice in a day one of the 16-gauge stay wires running to the leading edge of the elevator. I found him calmly having it replaced by a 14-gauge wire, happily ignoring the fact that by putting in a stronger wire he was increasing the strain on the remaining 16-gauge wires, which, incidentally, were all badly rusted and ready to snap on the slightest encouragement. Yet he went on carrying passengers and doing switchbacks as industriously as ever all the rest of the day. While pilots behave in such a way, and while machines are left uninspected for a whole day at a time, the wonder is that any aviators remain unkilled, and yet, when one realises how much a few alterations and proper precautions would increase the safety of flying, one wonders equally why anyone should be killed at all. Where a Life Might Have Been Saved. Referring again to two matters mentioned in recent issues of this paper, I am told by a reader that he has already patented the use of a complete wicker-work cradle inside the fuselage of an aeroplane, and hopes to publish his claims before long. It is worth while recalling that a wicker floor and front screen would probably have saved the life of the late Mr. Wight, for if his foot had not gone clear through the wooden flooring of his machine it could not have been entangled in the wires which held him while he was burnt to death, and probably the springiness of wicker would have prevented even a severe shock. Safe Rudder Bars. Although Mr. Brock's experience, related last week, did On not end fatally, we cannot afford to neglect its lessons. account of its educative value it is a good thing that it occurred-unfeeling as it seems to say so. The slipping of his foot over the rudder-bar and the consequent side-slip and dive, suggests the probable cause of very many of the accidents which have had fatal results. To prevent accidents of this kind a safety-belt alone is not sufficient. It prevents the pilot from falling onto his controls, but the slipping of the foot alone, as Mr. Hawker's accident in Ireland showed, may end in disaster. Also, foolish as it may seem, many pilots refuse to wear a belt at any price. Consequently it is now clear that all rudder-bars must have some fitting to prevent the foot from slipping over. A proper pedal with a toe-clip, as on the Maurice Farman, is obviously the correct thing, and if the pedal is allowed to swivel on the bar it will avoid any chance of cramping the pilot's legs as a fixed pedal would. Any person who is killed in future owing to the pilot's foot slipping over or off the rudder-bar, after the lesson we have had from Mr. Brock, will have been murdered by the carelessness or ignorance of the owner of his machine. I exclude the Another instance of asking for trouble happened also a few pilot from the charge because so many pilots will fly anything A Visitor at Hendon :-Lieut. R. E. H. Rathborne, R.M.L.I., about to start for the Naval Air Station at Harwich on a new Maurice Farman recently purchased by the Admiralty. He made the journey in 65 minutes. The Bristol Frying Schools THE PREMIER SCHOOLS OF THE COUNTRY TUITION on All Types of Machines. NO WAITING. RAPID AND THOROUGH Silver Scale Model of "Sopwith" Waterplane used in "Daily Mail" Circuit of the United Kingdom. The Company has made models of the most famous machines in Silver, MAPPIN & WEBB LTD. 158-162 OXFORD ST. W. 2 QUEEN VICTORIA ST. EC. 220 REGENT ST. W. rather than not fly at all, and, to some extent, the flying temperament is an off-shoot of the artistic temperament, which is not always responsible for its own actions when those actions should be governed by common sense. There is also the possibility that the pilot who objected to the "shut-in" feeling produced by a belt might object equally to toe-clips or straps over his feet, so, as an alternative, I venture to suggest that rudder bars should be fitted with a light aluminium box, which would cover the pilot's toes without touching them, something like the upper part of a Moorish or Mexican box-stirrup. Then if a man's foot slipped over the bar itself it would not go more than an inch or SO forward. Sociable Aeroplanes. There are already in existence a certain number of aeroplanes, commonly known as "sociables," in which the pilot and passenger sit side by side, and I rather think that as the aeroplane, and especially the seaplane, becomes more popular for passenger carrying, the numbers of this type will increase rapidly, for, even at present, it is much more interesting to sit beside the pilot and watch his manoeuvres than it is to be in front of or behind him. I judge from experiences on the Sopwith bat-boat where one sits beside the pilot, and on the Sopwith tractor where one's only company is the back of the engine. When we have properly silenced engines it will be possible to talk with ease, and that will increase the popularity of "sociables," except with very misanthropic, or misogynistic pilots, for there is no reason why one should not talk to the man at the wheel when on the high airs, though it would be well not to distract his attention when making a difficult harbour. Now, it seems, there is a certain danger in this type against which one should guard, namely, that if the machine overbanks, or is suddenly thrown sideways by a gust, the pilot may be flung sideways against the passenger, or vice versa, and prevent the controls from working. If the pilot happens to be flying this type of machine alone the danger is increased, for he may slip right along the seat away from his controls, or may drag the control lever with him, causing the bank to increase, so that it ends in a side-slip and nosedive. Of course this should not happen if the pilot wears a belt, but if he does not it is absolutely essential that the seat should have a stout partition to keep either of the crew from slipping out of his place. It is better still to give each a separate bucket seat, as in a racing car. No motorist of experience would think of driving a racing car with an undivided seat, and even a fast touring car is safer if the driver's seat is partitioned off from the passenger's. Here again I venture to speak from experience, for only a few days ago an unexpected side-slip in a tram-line flung me across the seat of a small car so that I lost the clutch-pedal and came palous near collecting a motor-'bus with my radiator. If, then, divided seats are advisable on mere motor-cars, how much more are they needed on aeroplanes? I have been told that more than one aviator has been killed by slipping along the undivided seat of a "sociable" aeroplane, and I only hope that, in this country at any rate, we shall never in future be compelled to ascribe a fatality to such an unpardonable piece of carelessness on the part of an aeroplane maker as allowing a "sociable" to go out without proper division between the seats.-C. G. G. The Royal Aero Club. At the committee meeting on the 11th inst., the following aviators' certificates were granted :-666, Lieut. Charles Herbert Collet, R.M.A. (Avro biplane, Central Flying School, Upaven), Oct. 21st, 1913; 667, Capt. Cecil Francis Kilner, R.M.L.I. (B.E. biplane, Central Flying School, Upavon), Oct. 22nd, 1913; 668, Ordinary Telegraphist Robert Millar Stirling, R.N. (Bristol biplane, Naval School, Eastchurch), Oct. 22nd, 1913; 669, Artificer Engineer William Foster Floyd (Warrant Officer), R.N. (Bristol biplane, Naval School, Eastchurch), Oct. 24th, 1913; 670, 2nd Lieut. Ralph William Gore Hinds (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) (Bristol biplane, Bristol School, Brooklands), Oct. 31st, 1913; 671, Lieut. William Foster MacNeece (1st Battalion Queen's Own Regt.) (Bristol biplane, Bristol School, Brooklands), Oct. 31st, 1913; 672, Petty Officer James Fraser Grady, R.N. (Maurice Farman biplane, Central Flying School, Upavon), Nov. 1st, 1913; 673, First Air-Mechanic William Hedley Butt, R.F.C. (Maurice Farman biplane, Central Flying School, Upavon), Nov. Ist, 1913; 674, First Air-Mechanic Ernest Edward Copper, R.F.C. (Maurice Farman biplane, Central Flying School, Upavon), Nov. 1st, 1913; 675, Hugh Nelson, E.R.A., R.N. (Bristol biplane, Naval School, Eastchurch), Nov. 1st, 1913; 676, Lieut. de Courcy Wyndor Plunkett Ireland, R. N. (Bristol biplane, Naval School, Eastchurch), Nov. 1st, 1913; 677, Sergt. David Patterson, R.F.C. (Short biplane, Central Flying School, Upavon), Nov. 4th, 1913; 678, 2nd Lieut. George John Malcolm, R.A. (Vickers biplane, Vickers School, Brooklands), Nov. 5th, 1913; 679, Capt. Thomas Hugh Colville Frankland (Royal Dublin Fusiliers) (Vickers biplane, Vickers School, Brooklands), Nov. 5th, 1913; 680, 2nd Lieut. Sydney Harry Batty-Smith (1st Loyal North Lancashire Regt.) (Vickers biplane, Vickers School, Brookland), Nov. 5th, 1913; 681, Sub.-Lieut. John Douglas Harvey, R.N. (Bristol biplane), Bristol School, Brooklands), Nov. 6th, 1913; 682, 2nd Lieut. Marcus Winslow Huish, K.F.A. (Bristol biplane, Bristol School, Salisbury Plain), Nov. 8th, 1913. The aeronaut's certificate was granted to 21, E. J. Protheroe. The airship pilot certificate was granted to 21, E. J. Protheroe. FLYING TO THE DANGER OF THE PUBLIC.-It was resolved that the following notice be substituted for the "Important Notice to Aviators" issued in November, 1912, and appearing on page 61 of the "Year Book," 1913 "The Royal Aero Club, being the sole authority under the provisions of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for regulating all matters relating to aeronautics and aviation in the British Empire, hereby issues the following notices and regulations to aviators of all nationalities within its jurisdiction: "1. Flying to the danger of the public is hereby prohibited; particularly unnecessary flights over towns or thickly populated areas or over places where crowds are temporarily assembled, or over public enclosures at aerodromes at such a height as to involve danger to the public. "2. Flying is also prohibited over river regattas, race meetings, meetings for public games and sports, except flights specifically arranged for in writing with the promoters of such regattas, meetings, etc. [It will be noted that nothing is said about sea regattas.— ED.] "Any disregard of the above prohibitions will render the aviator liable to censure, fine not exceeding £20, suspension of the competitor's certificate, and removal from the competitor's register, or render him ineligible for such register. MANCHESTER AERO CLUB.-A letter was received from the Manchester Aero Club stating that owing to lack of support in the district, the Club had been disbanded. An Affair for the S.M.M. and T. One has yet to hear of the Aero Section of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders doing much to justify its existence, except perhaps in more or less mismanaging an aero show at infrequent intervals. If this well-intentioned body really wishes to do good to the aeroplane industry which it is supposed to represent, it might turn its attention to the subject of railway rates for aeroplanes. One gathers that it is actually cheaper for an aeroplane manufacturer to hire a truck attached to a passenger train in which to transport an aeroplane than it is for him to send an aeroplane by goods train and declare the contents of the case in the usual way, owing to the excessive rate charged on this class of goods. |