It is just twenty-five years ago since M. Bleriot •
._ astounded the world with his flight across the Channel, and on Saturday the.Royal Air Force will be giving their display at Hendon in aeroplanes that have a normal speed of 250 miles an hour. In no, other invention has a quarter of . a. century shown a more revolutionary development. In 1909, air travel was the highly dangerous hobby of a handful of adventurers ; it is now an ordinary • habit of many business men and the main means of transport of Foreign Secretaries. In 1909, the greatest danger was that of running out of fuel ; in 1934 an aeroplane Could carry supplies for many days in the air, and a flight over the Pacific or the Atlantic occasions less notice than did that perilous hop over the Channel twenty-five years ago. The tragedy is that the hopes of the conquest of the air as a factor in knitting nations closer together remain only partly fulfilled, and more sinister uses of air-craft thrust themselves more and more on our attention. As a means of inter-communica- tion between the distant parts of the Empire flight has already done something to solve the problems of geography.. It has in that way vastly increased the resources of civilization. But if its operation in war is not drastically controlled, it may destroy civiliza- tion.
Previous page
