Evening star., 1937-01-18
Aviation Needs Supermen
Air Crashes Indicate Mans Nature Must Be Disciplined
More for Air
More for Air.

vidualist, but co-operator. The race
of birdmen is not yet bred.
Man has got himself wings, but it
hasn't made him an angel. He can
manage the most grandioSe machine,
the most subtle instruments, better
than he can manage himself. He
trusts his wits, his skill, his fair, his
himself to discipline. not even the dis
cipline of his instruments. So say the
candid pilots. "Present-day scientific
airline equipment has eliminated all
expected failings except human in
competence, disobedience and poor
Judgment said Bill Taylor, a flyer,
in The Sportsman Pilot last May.
The Human Touch.
II pilot forced by storm into
long detour makes a forced landing
in an unlikely spot because his gas
is out, when did he last refuel? Not
at every station. 1t would delay the
flight. He shares the blame with the
administrative personnel. II he CHS
els in on his fellows by reporting
that he will arrive earlier than he
knows he will. at the rendezvous before
the airport, whence all ships are Or
dered into port If by this false report
he gets himself ahead of the line, only
to keep some one else up in the air and
circling around with gas failing-well,
he gets in on time and gets the kudos.
Perhaps the other fellow doesn't. This
complaint is commonly made by air.
men. II pilot with full load Of
passengers, his radio not functioning
and gas to spare, tries to come through
the ceiling in the middle of VIGOROUSLY
mountainous country and pancakes
on a hillside. are the mountains, the
radio, the ceiling to blame? Or is it
human judgment?
Don't fly with veterans" says my
mentor Choose for a pilot a pink
faced boy. He may belong to the
future race. He doesn't sit around
swapping yarns of the time when fly
ing was flying. he doesn't brag Of
miraculous flights, he doesn't get glor-
iously drunk the night before he is
going to fly. He isn't transformer.
He is a member of guild when
all the war flyers are underground
and the romantic tradition of flying
is definitely past, then, perhaps, we
shall have flyers whose wings become
them"
Lindberg hates publicity. Perhaps
he senses deeply just why. Perhaps
he knows that personal glorification
may negate personal skill. Others
called him the Lone Eagle" He
wrote book called We"
Politics and Commerce.
Consider not only the pilots. There
are executives bent on holding the
mail subsidies. lost or diminished if
the mail is entrained. There are pol
iticians in and out of Government,
bent on whitewashing their own bu-
reaus. or raising publicity for them
selves in f1ashy investigations" There
is competition, in which the schedule
as well as safety is reckoned. There
are all the rules that are not enforced
and there is the insufficiency of rules
that are universal. too many of them
made by bureaucrats with too little
collaboration with the men who ac-
tually fly. And there are the pas
sengers whining and complaining to
the company when the flight is inter-
rupted and they must go part way by
train. So say the candid aviators
When they telephoned you that
your son was in the hospital with
compound fractures. and his car a
wreck by the roadside, was the car to
blame? Was it the slippery road?
Was the traffic light not functioning?
Or was he taking a curve too fast
or disregarding the light, seeing no
car in sight and knowing this road
so well?" If men hate law on the
ground will they love it in the air2
Training an Essential.
The good aviator Is, to start with,
an outstanding individual. He must
have ebullient health, a sense of ad-
venture. a willingness to take risks Of
training Not by nature pedestrian.
And that man must be taken and his
indiyidua IiSrn so great an asset must