Uses for Aircraft

Abstract

WHEN in the year 1912 I gave the first of the James Forrest lectures on aerial flight, I said that the chief uses of aircraft would probably be for the purposes of war or for sport. As a member of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics I have been in a position to follow the various developments which have been made since that date, but I see no reason to alter my opinion. While the cost of carriage by air is as high as it necessarily must be at present, the commercial use of aircraft on any considerable scale seems impossible. There is no difficulty in carrying goods; the difficulty is to find any class of goods which, for the sake of halving the time of transit, will bear the increased cost of carriage. A certain small amount of postal work, with a few passengers, so long as the novelty is an attraction, or in special cases, seems to be the only opening. If the ton-mile cost could be reduced to as many farthings as it now is shillings, commercial uses on a much enlarged scale would be found.