Omaha daily bee., 1919-03-22

jections has been the great expense
of construction of sheds large
enough to house the rigid airships
of the future and the taking of them
in and out of their sheds in any,
thing but calm weather. It is pos
sible that these difficulties may. be
solved by the method of mooring
them to masts or cables and if this
is successful, the airship would then
need only to be taken into the shed
for overhaul and repairs in the same
way as the steamship enters dry
dock for a periodical reft. Schemes
for the development of the airship
for commercial purposes may be-
long to the future more than to the
immediate present. Its possibilities
should, however, not be forgotten.
Some day, perhaps. when the prob
lens are solved and subsidiary or
ganization has been built up, it may
be possible to run continuous alt
ship service between England and
America.
One of the most important of the
attendant problems to be solved is
the influence of the weather on the
operation of any flying service. At
present the weather still is the
great natural enemy of aviation.
That it will before long be fully con-
quered, there is very little doubt.
There are at present 81 ROYAL Air
Force meteorological stations in the
United Kingdom alone, and there
seems every likelihood of this num-
Der increasing rather than decreas-
ing. 1t is to my mind essential
that the development of both me-
teorology and wireless biography
should take place along broad i'm
perial lines. British aircraft will
soon be as widely spread as the
British empire.
The development which will be OF
the greatest use for enabling ma
chimes to fly all weathers is the
direction-fnding wireless apparatus
carried in aircraft for ascertaining
the bearing of ground wireless trans
hitting stations. This method is at
present secret and was developed in
the service during the war. 1t will
probably be one of the greatest fac
tors in facilitating and increasing
the safety of flying overseas and
above clouds. Aircraft so equipped
can fix their position frequently, can
report to their base at any moment
where they are, what course they
are steering, or if they are in any
difficulty. The ground transmitting
stations are, in fact, a form of aerial
lighthouse or beacon unaffected by
fog, apd with range of visibility
of 800 or 700 miles. Their cost
would be high, perhaps in the neigh
borhood of 100000 or $4,000 per
station, but for aircraft they are
primary requirements. They would,
moreover, be useful for news trans
mission and also be help to ship
ping in foggy weather, and when
astronomical observations are i'm
possible on account of clouds. An
other indispensable adjunct to
aerial navigation will be the prep
aration of specialized air charts OF
all routes.
A Pilot of the Future.
One frequently hears the opinion
expressed that in the future the pilot
of the aeroplane will correspond to
q driver of a car. This | regard as
a fallacy; much higher type of in
telligence and a much higher type of
courage is and will be required for
aircraft than for any form of land
transport. A pilot is something more
than a mere driver; he must be
something of an engineer, using the
term in its broadcast sense. He must
be the type of man who has got
weather, navigation, machinery, and
speed in his bones. Though not
necessarily trick flyer, he will GER
tainly need as much courage as is re-
quired for trick flying. A good pilot
should possess the faculty which en-
ables men to make mental calcula-
tons or to reason rapidly from cause
to effect. In other words he must
not get furried. He requires in fact
the qualifications which go to make
successful seamen and horsemen. |
could imagine the ideal pilot for i'm
portant commercial work would be
one who, having served his appren-
in sailing vessel, passed in
navigation and worked in steam, had
joined the cavalry at the beginning
of the war, transferred to the air
service, and has been employed on
long reconnaissance and long-range
night bombing raids. The British
race possess naturally all the charac-
teristics of the ideal commercial type |
Of pilot in a latent form, and just |
as the Elizabethan seamen and the
buccaneers of later date prepared
that way for the race of modern mer-
chant seamen, so the war pilots of
today have paved the way for the
evolution of a British merchant air
service.