The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-08-05
STATISTICS SHOW
FLYING Is SAFE
Figures Officially Compiled Disprove
Common Reputation For anger
In Air Navigation.

The airplane is the fastest Machine
man has ever built, but fast as it is,
it has not yet caught up with its rep
utation for danger. That reputation
was acquired when the plane was in
it's infancy, when man was just be-
ginning to master the air, and in the
mind of the average man it has not
yet been downed.
One reason why this belief in the
danger of aviation persists, accord
ing to Paul G. Zimmerman, Chief En-
gineer of the Aeromarine Plane and
Motor Company, of Keyport, New
Jersey, is that man has chung to the
earth for untold ages and it does not
seem quite natural to him to take
suddenly to the air.
"Just as people a few years ago re-
garded airmen, so / believe prehis-
toric races must have regarded the
first man to venture on water in cor
acIes," saaid Mr.. Zimmerman. THE
average busy man has no time to
read of the exact science of aeronaut-
les which now has made the airplane
safe. He sees in the papers occas-
sionally story of an airplane acct
dent and reads it. not stopping to
think of the thousands of miles flown
that day by other planes. But he prob
ably skips a few briefer accounts of
accidents to automobiles because these
are too common to interest him.
In substantiating this statement that
airplanes are safe We find our best
argument in statistics collected here
and abroad by governments. 1t should
deal principally with land machines,
fI,af
safer than airplanes. The reason for
this is that flying boats can always
land on water while airplanes are de-
pendent on landing fields which, at
the present time, are far from num-
erous. The flying boat is not compel
led to fly high for safety's sake. 1t
can skim along two or three feet above
the water for hours when fog or low
clouds make high flying hazardous.
The fog can always land safely if the
the fog descends to the water or be-
comes too thick, while the airplane is
no so fortunate.
THE British Air Ministry o get
back to the subject, collected Stats
tics on al commercial flying in that
country for the last seven months of
1919. The results amazed even pilots
and engineers who had long regard
ed the risk in flying as negligible The
figures covered $3.50 flights fy 400
machines of a total time in the air of
S,36S hours, during which time $685.
600 miles were travelled. In all this
flying in good weather and bad, one
passenger was killed in every 1866
passenger hours in the air. To put it
differently a single passenger might
expect to fly about 1,1S0,000 miles
Al times around the world--before be-
coming the victim of a fatal crash
That sounds utterly absurd to the
landsman, yet the British government
stands back of the figures
The pilots, who tested experiment
tai planes, did stunt flying and ran un-
necessary other risks, showed As deaths
per thousand hours, as compared to
the passenger rate of .06 per thousand
hours.
Coming nearer home, figures com
piled by the Post Office Department
show to the end of 1919, 100000 miles
flown with the loss of three pilots
These pilots of course, ran many risks
for they carried the mail through the
rain, snow and fog that blinded them.
Even in training pilots the figures
are exceedingly low. From the be-
ginning of the war until the end of
1918, 1850 men learned to fly in the
U. s. Air Service. They spent 7O5.
24S hours in the air. One man was
killed in every 2,310 hours, or one
about every 100000 miles. With these
positive proofs of aviation's safety be-
fore US, American manufacturers are
going ahead building planes confident
that the realization will soon come
everywhere that man can take care of
himself as surely in the realm of the
birds as in the realm of the fishes"