"Another airman killed!" "There'll soon be none of those flying fellows
left!" "Far too risky a game!" "Ought to be stopped by law!"
How many times have we heard these, and similar remarks, when the
newspapers relate the account of some fatality in the air! People have
come to think that flying is a terribly risky occupation, and that if
one wishes to put an end to one's life one has only to go up in a
flying machine. For the last twenty years some of our great writers have
prophesied that the conquest of the air would be as costly in human life
as was that of the sea, but their prophecies have most certainly been
wrong, for in the wreck of one single vessel, such as that of the
Titanic, more lives were lost than in all the disasters to any form of
aerial craft.
Perhaps some of our grandfathers can remember the dread with which many
nervous people entered, or saw their friends enter, a train. Travellers
by the railway eighty or ninety years ago considered that they took
their lives in their hands, so to speak, when they went on a long
journey, and a great sigh of relief arose in the members of their
families when the news came that the journey was safely ended. In George
Stephenson's days there was considerable opposition to the institution
of the railway, simply on account of the number of accidents which it
was anticipated would take place.
Now we laugh at the fears of our great-grandparents; is it not probable
that our grandchildren will laugh in a similar manner at our timidity
over the aeroplane?
In the case of all recent new inventions in methods of locomotion there
has always been a feeling among certain people that the law ought to
prohibit such inventions from being put into practice.
There used to be bitter opposition to the motor-car, and at first every
mechanically-driven vehicle had to have a man walking in front with a
red flag.
There are risks in all means of transit; indeed, it may be said that the
world is a dangerous place to live in. It is true, too, that the demons
of the air have taken their toll of life from the young, ambitious, and
daring souls. Many of the fatal accidents have been due to defective
work in some part of the machinery, some to want of that complete
knowledge and control that only experience can give, some even to want
of proper care on the part of the pilot. If a pilot takes ordinary care
in controlling his machine, and if the mechanics who have built the
machine have done their work thoroughly, flying, nowadays, should be
practically as safe as motoring.
The French Aero Club find, from a mass or information which has been
compiled for them with great care, that for every 92,000 miles actually
flown by aeroplane during the year 1912, only one fatal accident had
occurred. This, too, in France, where some of the pilots have been
notoriously reckless, and where far more airmen have been killed than in
Britain.
When we examine carefully the statistics dealing with fatal accidents
in aeroplanes we find that the pioneers of flying, such as the famous
Wright Brothers, Bleriot, Farman, Grahame-White, and so on, were
comparatively free from accidents. No doubt, in some cases, defective
machines or treacherous wind gusts caused the craft to collapse in
mid-air. But, as a rule, the first men to fly were careful to see that
every part of the machine was in order before going up in it, so that
they rarely came to grief through the planes not being sufficiently
tightened up, wires being unduly strained, spars snapping, or bolts
becoming loose.
Mr. Grahame-White admirably expresses this when he says: "It is a
melancholy reflection, when one is going through the lists of aeroplane
fatalities, to think how many might have been avoided. Really the crux
of the situation in this connection, as it appears to me, is this: the
first men who flew, having had all the drudgery and danger of pioneer
work, were extremely careful in all they did; and this fact accounts for
the comparatively large proportion of these very first airmen who have
survived.
"But the men who came next in the path of progress, having a machine
ready-made, so to speak, and having nothing to do but to get into it and
fly, did not, in many cases, exercise this saving grace of caution. And
that--at least in my view--is why a good many of what one may call the
second flight of pilots came to grief."