THE PROPOSED AVIATION SCHOOL FOR THE LAKE DISTRICT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR.,--At a meeting of the residents round the shores of Win- dermere last Friday a letter was read from the promoter of a hydro-aeroplane company who has obtained a lease of fourteen years from the Rector of Windermere, which will enable him to build his factory on the glebe land at the narrowest part of the Lake, between Bowness Bay and the ferry. That letter showed that what was intended was neither more nor less than to convert Windermere into an aerodrome. Ho had obtained the consent of a well known nobleman in the North to act as patron, and, encouraged by interested inquiries from the War Office, it was evident that a factory of machines on a large scale was in his mind. He minimized the nuisance from the terrific noise of his machine, heard now for more than a mile from the Lake, by saying that a friend had not been able to distinguish the sound of a Gnome engine in flight from the noise of a motor cycle on a racing track. With regard to the disfigurement of the Lake shore by his two hangars, twenty-two feet high and eighty feet broad, he was willing to paint them of a neutral green, quite forgetting that the amenity of the scene for all residents who look down upon the shore and all who pass close by them on the Lake will be irretrievably injured by their structure.
With a delightful simplicity he admitted that his reason for selecting his place of manufacture was that there was less danger for aviation over the water than over the land. Less danger to whom? To the airmen who will have a soft fall or to the boating people, who after being blessed by a sprinkling of castor oil from above will be possibly sunk by
a 50 h.-p. Gnome on their heads ? Or to horses, who as they cross the ferry close by, or pass along the roads near the Lake, will, as has already been experienced, protest in the only way that frightened horses can ? With a curious dis- regard of the fact that the Board of Trade has prohibited steamers passing through the narrows and threading the islands at a greater speed than six miles an hour, this daring aviator intends to plant his sheds for starting off from right in the middle of this danger zone, though it is incontrovertible that his amphibious machine is at the starting point to all intents and purposes a vessel propelled at great speed.
The meeting realized that, quite apart from the nuisance of the noise, which would prevent the very quiet they had come to seek, and paid heavy prices for building sites to obtain, this conversion of Windermere into an aerodrome would not only depreciate property and prevent any further building, ns has, we are informed, been proved to be the case at Brooklands and near Hendon, but would in the long run damage the hotel- keepers and the tradesmen. For although a certain number of the boat-builder hands would obtain work in the aeroplane shop, yacht-building would probably cease, and the chief industry of the Lake, which is now boating, would be gravely interfered with. But it was on the question of danger to the public that the meeting was most unanimous. Windermere is a highway, not only for the passenger steamers between Lakeside and Waterbead, but is constantly being crossed by private launches to and from Bowness and Ambleside. At times Bowness Bay and the neighbourhood swarms with boating craft of all descriptions. At times yacht races seem to fill the available water space. Who in his senses would risk the chance of an aeroplane suddenly falling upon his boating party, or yacht, or launch if he could help it ?
Tile promoter of this Lake District Aviation School spoke of Windermere as being specially suitable to his plan. If there is one part of the North of England less suited, it surely is the Lake District, if we are to believe the experience of such skilled aviators as Beaumont and Vedrines. Not only is Windermere subject to sudden squalls, but pockets of air are certain to exist in the neighbourhood of any of our fell- sides. During the great thousand-mile race of the two skilled and daring airmen who came in filet and second one was nearly wrecked as he flew over Shap and the gorge of Tebay, and the other gave our Lake District hills a wide berth rather than risk the danger he foresaw.
If this mischievous scheme, with whatever good intent behind it on the score of national service, is allowed to proceed unchecked, it is good-bye not only to the peace and quiet of the district, which is now sought out for that very reason by the hard workers of the northern cities, but it is also farewell to the enjoyment of the legitimate sport of boating, sailing, or fishing without fear and danger on P.S.—The matter is not a local matter only. It is a national one. Other less-frequented sheets of water, without the proximity of hills, may be found for hydro-neroplaning experiments and aviation schools. If Lancashire cares to preserve the amenity of its resting ground, it must speak out.
Either write to W. Warburton, Esq., Chairman, Cragwood, Troutbeck, or A. Holmes, Esq., Linthwaite, Windermere (Hon. Sec. Local Committee).
[It is essential that we should not fall behind the Conti- nental Powers in the supply and expert use of aeroplanes.
But if a strong case can be made out, as Canon Rawnsley seems to have done, against the choice of Windermere as an aerodrome, on meteorological grounds as well as on the
score of the safety of the residents, the project is unworthy of support, and we wish its opponents every success.—En, Spectator.]
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