82 



Canadian Foreslr]) Journal, February, 1920 



THE USES AND ABUSES OF AIRCRAFT 



D\) Major K. E. Clayton-Kennedy. 

 (In an inlervictv rvith the Canadian Forestry Journal) 



"Tlie flying man has an excusable and laud- 

 able desire to fly. If he is very junior he may 

 desire publicity and plaudits and delight in be- 

 ing pictured as a 'hero birdman,' instead of 

 realizing that an aeroplane pilot in commercial 

 aviation is about as heroic as a taxi-driver. The 

 'hard-headed businessman' usually wants to ac- 

 complish certain objects, obtain information 

 quickly, travel more expeditiously, etc. 



"Unfortunately there have been several in- 

 stances when the aforesaid hard-headed busi- 

 nessman has not applied ordinary business judg- 

 ment and 'horse sense' to the schemes and pro- 

 posals put forward by enthusiasts, for the com- 

 bination of the theoretically romantic flying with 

 some more prosaic business. A great majority 

 of our returned flying officers are very young 

 men of little business or organization experience. 

 They went overseas, received intensive training 

 for certain purposes, were given a machine, and 

 detailed to do a certain job, which, in the ma- 

 jority of cases they did, to the entire satisfac- 

 tion of all those against whom their efforts were 

 not directed. If they brought the machine back 

 so much the better. Mechanics took charge of 

 it, and the flying officer did not usually think of 

 it again until the next job of work came along. 

 If he 'crashed,' he was told he was a careless 

 lad, and to go and get another. Not three in a 

 hundred knew the rudiments of maintenance, 

 and practically none knew or cared anything of 

 the costs thereof. 



"So much may be attained by successful com- 

 mercial aerial development, while the difficul- 



ties which admittedly exist and must be over- 

 come are so great that immature attempts are 

 apt to prove disastrous to the development of 

 aviation. It must be realized that carrying out 

 an aerial service involves skilled organization, 

 and that the actual flying is really a very small 

 part of the undertaking. To fly a machine in- 

 termittently is quite a simple matter, but to 

 maintain a regular service is much more diffi- 

 cult, and involves a great deal of knowledge 

 and executive ability quite aside from flying 

 knowledge. Mapping from aid photographs is 

 really a very highly technical undertaking, and 

 the ordinary simple mosaic is not at all a true 

 record and will not conform to an accurate 

 survey unless it is carefully scaled and distor- 

 tions corrected. The ordinary picture of this 

 sort, shows all the topographical features in 

 great detail, but there is no means of determin- 

 ing the exact scale, or the amount of distortions 

 due to the camera not being truly vertical at the 

 moment of exposure, except by the utilization of 

 mechanical devices for measuring a tilt of the 

 camera and its height at the moment of ex- 

 posure, or by determining on the ground the 

 correct positions of a sufficient number of points 

 which can be identified on the photographs and 

 deducting the scale and distortions of each 

 photograph by comparing the relative positions 

 of such fixed points as appear on it, with their 

 true relative position as fixed on the ground. 

 This involves the utilization of instruments of 

 considerable precision in the hands of experts." 



PRUSSIAN FORESTS AND THE REVOLUTION 



The following from the Deutsche Forstzei- 

 tung, is of interest: 



The social upheaval in Germany following the 

 cessation of hostilities affected even the forests. 

 For instance, on Jan. 1 1 th, a party of about 50 

 people, armed with axes and saws, invaded the 

 state forest in the Hanau district, and began to 

 fell trees indiscriminately right in front of the 

 forester's house. When he protested they drove 

 him off with axes. Soldiers stationed nearby 

 sided with the trespassers. A few days later 

 another party of 50 or 60 men committed sim- 

 ilar depredations on another part of the same 



forest, informing the forest officer that they were 

 authorized to do so by the official appointed by 

 the Soldiers' and Workers' Council of Hanau. 



The forests near Nuremburg suffered even 

 worse. Hundreds of men, women and children 

 helped themselves to the timber, not only for 

 their own use but to sell. Areas of 20 to 30 

 hectares were cut clean; even telephone and 

 telegraph poles were cut and the wire carried 

 away. From 60.000 to 70,000 marks' worth of 

 wood was thus stolen from the Nuremberg crown 

 forest each day. 



