AVIATION, CIVIL. Civil aviation embraces all forms of flying other than that carried out by fighting forces and may be divided broadly into three branches. Before coming to details it will be useful to describe briefly the scope and nature of each branch. Though comparatively young, civil aviation has made sturdy growth and has developed along distinctive lines.
(I) Air Transport.—This has found a secure footing as an extra-rapid parallel to land and sea methods of transport and as an almost indispensable form of communication where ground services are difficult or non-existent ; hence it has an enormous field of usefulness in the British empire. In most countries air transport is organized by private enterprise, with the aid of Gov ernment subsidies.
(2) Other Commercial Uses of Aircraft.—These embrace air photographic survey, air photography for trade and advertising, forest fire protection and forest inventories, crop dusting for pest destruction, sky-writing, ambulance and medical duties, pros pecting and geological survey, and charter hire.
(3) Flying Training, Private Flying and Air Racing.—Ele mentary training for military as well as civil pilots is in many countries carried on by civil organizations. In England many civil schools have been established which provide training facil ities for the Royal Air Force Reserve, under contract with the Government, and also train civilians on ordinary commercial terms. In the United States, however, military and naval pilots are usually trained in Government-owned and operated schools. Private flying as we know it is a comparatively new movement, although its origins go back to the earliest days of aviation. It has been made possible as a popular sport by the development of the light aeroplane and by the establishment, outside of the United States, of Government-aided flying clubs. Air racing has a hold on the public imagination, and the great national and international events everywhere attract thousands of spectators and world-wide attention.
Historical.—Air transport is an entirely modern conception. In 1870, balloons were employed for the carriage of messages from Paris during the siege, a measure for evading the besieging army, which, in other circumstances, could not have claimed to be a practical method of carrying mails. Between 1909 and 1914 various demonstrations were made to prove the suitability of the aeroplane as a rapid conveyance for mail matter, and a consid erable number of journeys by air were accomplished by private individuals; but none of these enterprises, though interesting and daring, could fairly be described as the real beginning of air transport.
That air transport would become a practical proposition was, however, recognized, and in 1910 a conference was held in Paris at which an international convention in regard to aerial navigation was drafted. The credit for the first genuine commercial air serv ice lies with Germany; from March 1912 until Nov. 1913 the rigid airships "Victoria Louise," "Hansa" and "Sachsen" plied regularly between Berlin and Friedrichshafen, and in 881 flights, totalling 65,500m., carried 19,105 passengers without injury and in considerable comfort.
The World War obviously interfered with the progress of com mercial operations, but while European nations were engaged in the great conflict they, and notably Great Britain, were studying the feasibility of wider purposes of civil and commercial flying, with the result that shortly after the war a start was made by England, France and Holland on actual operations that have grown, with the progress of other nations, to regular, efficient transport systems that cover all continents and girdle the entire world.
The Cross-Channel Air Service.—On Aug. 25, 1919, Air craft Transport and Travel Ltd. despatched the first aircraft to fly on a regular commercial service to Paris, and on Nov. 1o, 1919, an aeroplane belonging to the same company carried the first regularly established air mail to the same destination. The British Handley-Page Transport Ltd. and the French Cie. Messageries Aeriennes were quick to follow, and by Jan. 1, 1920, there were three British and two French companies operating on a regular time-table across the Channel. These operations were nearly all carried out by military aircraft, or by military aircraft modified to carry passengers in some degree of comfort. It was clear that air transport could not at once become self-supporting and would need some financial assistance from the State, until experience was gained and aircraft specially designed for commercial pur poses were produced with the aid of that experience.
The French Government had already realized the vast possi bilities of air transport and a costly and ambitious policy of finan cial assistance was inaugurated in 1919. This policy was inspired to some extent by its potential influence on the countries flown over, but its ultimate object was to attain rapid communication between Paris and the French colonies in Africa and Asia.
In England, on the other hand, there was not sufficient money allotted for even a very low standard of aerial defence, and air transport was therefore relegated to the background as an enter prise which the nation could not afford, although the British em pire had more to gain from its development than any other coun try in the world. Lacking Government support, the pioneers, and with them the public who had supported their new enterprises financially, walked towards inevitable ruin. The general financial crisis of the autumn of 1920 brought matters to a head, and Air craft Transport and Travel Ltd. went into liquidation in Decem ber, whilst in Feb. 1921' Handley-Page Transport Ltd. suspended operations, leaving the French' in unchallenged occupation of the cross-Channel routes. This disaster brought about a parliamen tary and press agitation and, as a result, from March 1921 the cross-Channel services have been subsidized in varying degrees.
From March 1921 until March 31, 1922, two British companies continued limited operations between London and Paris under a system of Government financial support which guaranteed them a 1o% profit on the receipts obtained for traffic carried. Whilst this temporary and admittedly extravagant measure was in force, the Londonderry Committee put forward a scheme which was accepted by the Government and operated from April to Sept. 1922. It comprised the provision of half the fleet of each company by the Government on a hire-purchase system, and a subsidy based partly on the load carried and partly on the gross earnings of the companies. Three companies, the Handley-Page Transport Ltd., the Instone Air Line Ltd., and Daimler Airways Ltd., operated to Paris, and one company, the Instone Air Line Ltd., flew to Brus sels. It was very soon found that the hire-purchase scheme was impracticable. Moreover, the traffic available between London and Paris was not sufficient for five companies (three British and two French), and it was unsound that all three British companies should be subsidized. On Oct. 1, 1922, this scheme was modi fied on the basis of avoiding competition between British com panies and extending British air transport into Europe as far as possible with the money available.
Meanwhile, owing to the various difficulties which had arisen and the apparent wastefulness of maintaining several separate organizations for a comparatively small volume of traffic, the Hambling Committee was assembled in Jan. 1923. This com mittee definitely recommended the amalgamation of the existing companies into a single national company with great freedom of action. They indicated that the company must be provided with a substantial capital, and be guaranteed a monopoly of subsidy for a term of years.
At the commencement the subsidy was paid according to the mileage flown on the regular routes, irrespective of the type of aircraft employed. As this method of payment held out no in ducement to the company to use larger and more economical aircraft it was modified in Dec. 1925 so that "horse-power miles" instead of "machine miles" became the basis of payment.
In order to earn the maximum subsidy the company was re quired to fly a minimum of 425,000,00o horse-power miles per annum. The fruit of this alteration was that the company re newed its fleet with advanced type of craft, extended its routes, added flight schedules and generally expanded its facilities in line with the growing consciousness of air travel, which began mark edly about 1927 and 1928. Such improvement of service required more financing, and so in addition to its share of the total civil aviation vote or appropriation, Imperial Airways received a direct subsidy. Under revision of the methods of Government financial assistance, however, Imperial Airways came in for the bulk of its help by air mail contracts operative in 1937, on a principle similar to that prevailing in the United States.
British service had long been set up between London and Paris, Basle, Zurich, Brussels, Cologne and Ostend when, in 1926, the Government handed over to Imperial Airways a mail route from Cairo to Baghdad which had been established in 1921 by the Royal Air Force. This Egypt-Iraq stage was the start of a system of routes which in ten years brought every Dominion, excepting Canada, in aerial contact with London. From Cairo, the route was run back via Alexandria and Athens to, Brindisi, where rail way connections with Paris were made until the British govern ment could conclude arrangements with France and Italy for a direct air service across all of Europe. Meanwhile, the route was extended East from Baghdad to Basra (1926) and to Karachi (1929) via Koweit, Bahrein, Sharjah and Gwadar.
Karachi had been a major goal when the Eastern service was projected, but the line did not stop there. Instead, in a period of five or six years, it had crossed all of India, bisected the Gulf of Bengal and gone over Burma and thence down through the Malay Straits and into Brisbane--a route distance from London of 12,754 miles, which in 1936 was being negotiated on regular and frequent schedules in approximately ten days, as against the twenty days required by surface transportation. Connection of Singapore with Hongkong, via Penang, Saigon and Tourane, was projected for 1937, closing another of the final links in complete empire service. With probable connection from Hongkong with an American route to Manila, this link would mark the comple tion of flying routes around the earth.
Meanwhile, Imperial Airways surveyed a British route through Africa from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. The survey was followed by demonstration flights, notably over the 1,40o miles between Khartoum and Kisumu, and on March 6, 1931, service was started on the Egyptian-South African route, first extending from Cairo to Kisumu in the Kenya Colony of East Africa, and by January of 1932 from Kisumu to Cape Town. The aerial conquest of Africa—almost 6,000 miles from Cairo to Cape Town—was as spectacular an achievement as the commer cial pioneering across the lands of Asia to Australia and China. Distances over Africa and Asia were immense, even by air, and they extended across some of the most isolated stretches of wil derness on the globe. This isolation of far-flung operations, plus complications incidental to arrangements for flight over the countries of peoples indifferent to the white man's sense of prog ress, prohibited, at least at first, the advantages of complete radio-guided and beacon-lighted routes which played such an important part in the remarkable progress of the United States toward first place in the air transport nations of the world.
A glance at the map, however, will readily indicate the nature of the terrain and the vagaries of the weather encountered in flight over Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. It is true that a rather complete knowledge of the world weather is now available and consistent flying has acquainted aeroplane crews with the sort of ground over which they fly, but weather changes come too suddenly for timely and accurate predictions in far-off places and knowledge of terrain is of comparatively little value until navigational and flying skill is brought into play. Hence it is that the extensive pioneering accomplished by British aviators and British equipment formed much of the basis upon which the success of the Empire routes was built and has been maintained for many years. An excellent means of visualizing rapidly the many changes that have occurred in the history of British air transport is given in the accompanying table.
Australia.—In Australia air transport is firmly established, the saving in time effected by aircraft being measured by days or in some cases weeks. Several subsidized routes are operated, totalling over 12,000 miles and circling the country entirely, plus a link with Tasmania.
Apart from conferring the benefits of more rapid communica tion upon the inhabitants of places lying on the regular routes, the Australian operating companies have done a most useful service in undertaking special "taxi" flights to other places. The con veyance of doctors to patients and the carriage of sick people unfit for ordinary travel to hospitals has been especially valuable in assisting the settlement of remote areas. Stock breeders have also been saved large losses in times of drought, when the search for grazing grounds has been successfully carried out by air in a fraction of the time that would otherwise be consumed.
The Wrights first flew in 1903, somewhat ahead of successful practical aeronautical experimentation in Europe, notably in France, and from the pioneer teaching in America and Europe a comparatively small group of pilots was evolved—this group, fast dying out, being popularly known in the United States as the "Early Birds," that is, usually, aviators who were trained prior to the World War.
The "Early Birds" were itinerant and scattered all over the United States, but the entrance of the United States into the World War in April of 1917 brought many of them into the Army where they served either as commissioned or civilian instructors of the young men, who, after the Armistice, served as the nucleus of the personnel of American aviation when it began its remark able advance.
Commercial aviation had been operating in Great Britain and Europe for several years when American pilots in 1921 pioneered the first transcontinental mail route between New York and San Francisco. This service was equipped with old war aircraft of British design and the long-obsolete Liberty engines, and was administered by the Post Office. Its operations were remarkable for their efficiency and regularity, and in 1924 the first regular night flying service in the world was carried out on the central section between Chicago and Cheyenne. Prior to that, however, as against the policy of support of various European nations, the United States Government gave little or no assistance to private aviation enterprise and even neglected to bring any form of air navigation regulations into force.
In February of 1925, however, a Congressional bill was passed empowering the Postmaster-General to make contracts for the carriage of domestic mail by private enterprise, and in May of 1926 the Air Commerce act came into law whereby air naviga tion was brought under Federal control and a civil aviation branch was set up in the Department of Commerce to administer the regulations and take charge of route organization and navigational facilities generally.
From that point progress has been very rapid. Lindbergh flew to Paris in May of 1927 and by July i of the same year nineteen air mail contracts had been awarded and sixteen contractors were in active operation. One half of the trans-continental service had been taken over by a contractor, and within several more months the remainder of the route passed to private operators. At this time the route mileage flown regularly with mails was 7,663 miles and the distance flown daily (including night flying) was 16,382 miles.
The contrast obtaining with these figures approximately seven years later is impressive. In 1934 there were twenty-five opera tors carrying passengers or mail or express, usually all three and they had spun a network of lines over North and South America of more than 50,000 miles, a figure far in excess of the route mileage of any other nation in the world. Over this Amer ican route mileage, transport craft of various sizes and the fastest speeds were flying more than 133,000 miles daily, more than half of the U. S. continental portion of this distance being negotiated by night, thanks chiefly to an elaborate system of radio-equipped and almost 19,000 miles of beacon-lighted airways built for the most part by Government money. Other Government money, given the air line operators in the form of mail contracts, per mitted the constant purchase of new, fast equipment, some of it including sleeper planes which first went into use on the southern transcontinental route of American Airlines.
The progress of night flying and transport speeds were two of the outstanding features of the advance of American commercial aviation. In 1921, when transcontinental mail service was first established, sixty hours were required for negotiation of the coast-to-coast distance; in five years this time was cut in half and in 1935 mail, passengers and express were being carried from the Pacific to the Atlantic on regular schedules of fifteen hours.
The rather generous policy of Government subsidy permitted in great measure the establishment of the trans-Pacific service of Pan American Airways from San Francisco to China via Hono lulu, Midway Islands, Wake, Guam and Manila. This 8,000 mile route is by far the longest over-water airways path in the world; it made possible the movement of mail, passengers and express across the Pacific in four days as against the weeks which had been required by some steamships.
A precipitous drop in some of the statistics for American avia tion is noticeable in 1934 due to the cancellation by the Govern ment of commercial air mail contracts on grounds of "collusion." But there being little substantiation of the charges, after three and a half months, the contracts• were reinstated. Despite this episode, the growth of the business in the United States remained impressive, as shown in the table given herewith: Other Countries.—Other European countries,particularlyRus sia and Holland, have spread their wings and flown far. Starting in 1919 with a service that first went between London, Paris and Copenhagen, Holland paralleled the activities of the British in establishing an air line to the East, terminating in Batavia.