Major-General Sir F. H. Sykes, Chief of the Air Staff,
presented at the London Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday a thorough and highly suggestive review of the prospects of Flying in Peace Time. Aviation, he said, was On the threshold of a new existence in civil and commercial life ; development must be guided so as to establish public trust in thoroughness and safety. He hoped that new legislation would permit private flying early in the coming Session of Parliament. Aviation was a child of War, and now nearly a dozen years old. On Its technical side the British air industry would folly hold its own. Flying was attended by very little risk in peace time. Atlantic flight—for
which the Daily Mai/ had offered the magnificent prize of £10,000 —presented serious problems only in navigation, meteorology, and wireless. A very small error would make an airman miss the Azores. Weather reports must be efficiently centralized. The R.A.F. had already done much to blaze the trail to India. General Sykes sketched the route—by Marseilles, Rome, Taranto, Soda Bay, Cairo, Baghdad, Basra, Bander Abbas, the Indian landfall being made at Charbah-Karachi.
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