Abstract
THE lecture delivered on May 30 at the Central Hall, Westminster, by Mr. Holt Thomas, on “Commercial Aviation,” should awaken a considerable amount of interest in the commercial possibilities of aircraft after the war. The lecture was in effect a prelude to the meeting of the Civil Aerial Transport Committee, of which Lord Northcliffe is chairman, which has recently been mentioned in these columns. The serious consideration of commercial aeronautics will involve a great deal of scientific work, since the machines which will be necessary for commercial transport will differ in many ways from the types which have been developed to meet the demands of war. Speed will still he an important factor, though not of such paramount importance as in the military aeroplane. Mr. Holt Thomas pointed out that an aerial mail to Paris could be worked profitably at a charge of one halfpenny per ounce, the time of transit being about three hours, and this one instance is sufficient to show the great advantages which aerial transport could confer upon modern commerce. The influence of winds would necessarily render such a mail service more erratic than those now in operation, but the greatly increased speed would more than compensate for this, especially in the case of journeys which now involve both land and sea transport. The question of passenger conveyance is much more complicated than the establishment of aerial mails, as it will be necessary to design machines to give a reasonable amount of comfort to the passengers, especially on the longer journeys. Such difficulties of design are by no means insuperable, and it is practically certain that passenger services will be established in the near future, especially to places not easily served by railway. As Mr. Holt Thomas remarked, the aeroplane could be used to develop outlying places until they grew sufficiently large to warrant the construction of a railway line. The aerial mail will probably come first, owing to the obvious benefits such a rapid service would bring, and to the fact that it would not involve any radical changes in the design of the necessary machines.
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Commercial Aeronautics . Nature 99, 294 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/099294a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/099294a0