172 



DISCOVERY 



debctis me jaccre dicere rem toticns) — not what a saint 

 ought to say, but the weary protest of a sick man. 



Other examples are contained in the same manu- 

 script,' and more discoveries of the same kind must be 

 awaiting the careful and lucky researcher. Each point 

 by itself is small : the cumulative effect is considerable, 

 and the more we can recover of the actual written 

 words of those who knew St. Francis best, the more 

 vivid, the more human, and the more true, our con- 

 ception of him will become. 



Note. — References to the literature on the subject will be 

 found in the writer's Guide to Franciscan Studies, S.P.C.K., 

 1920. 



Flying — and Its Outlook 



from a Postal Telegraph 



Point of View 



By A. S. Baxendale, M.I.E.E. 



Much has been said and written about Commercial 

 Aviation, but except for valuable contributions from 

 Mr. Holt Thomas, particularly regarding costs ascer- 

 tained by more or less bitter experience, I have heard 

 or read little on this subject that has not conveyed 

 to my mind the impression that the speakers and 

 writers have only vague notions as to the possible 

 directions in whicli a\'iation can render real benefit to 

 the public. 



The importance of concentration along lines of 

 least resistance, combined with a just value of the 

 objectives in %'iew, will be recognised by those who have 

 seen how disastrously some inventions and enterprises 

 of immense potentiahties have been retarded in their 

 development because their progenitors have from 

 their angle of view seen only some small side-track 

 instead of the main-line along which progress should 

 have been made. In other cases it would seem that 

 the protagonists have fallen in with the view of those 

 of their financial friends who consider that the best 

 use to which anything can be put is to convert it into 

 a gambling counter. 



Perhaps the views of one who has spent more than 

 twenty years in organising and controlling postal 

 and telegraph services will serve to give a practical 

 turn to the consideration of some of the more important 

 points involved in the development of air transport. 



In aerial as in all other forms of transport tlie first 



' Described in Collectanea Franciscana I (British Society of 

 Franciscan Studies, vol. v). 



consideration is that of reliability, and, unlike other 

 forms of transport, reliability in the air depends 

 largely on speed. At a safe cruising height — an alti- 

 tude, say, of 4,000 to 5,000 feet — a gale of 80 knots 

 often prevails, and a comparatively slow machine 

 facing this gale is more or less in the same predicament 

 as a slow steamer endeavouring to go upstream in 

 a river having a current of, say, 15 knots. 



Next to regularity, the most important consideration 

 is frequency of service, and if it were not for the fact 

 that regularity depends on speed,* speed would be 

 much less important than frequency of service. 



With equal reliability two services a day at an 

 average of 70 miles an hour would be much more 

 useful than one of upwards of 100 miles an hour. 



The ser\dce now being operated between London 

 and Paris, which, though scheduled and under contract 

 with the Post Office to ply daily, must still be considered 

 in the light of an experiment, affords a good example 

 of the futility of operating a single dispatch service. 



It will be seen from the following table that, for 

 nearly every hour of the day when letters are generally 

 posted, the length of time elapsing between the posting 

 and delivery of correspondence (called technically 

 " the delay ") is considerably greater in the case of 

 air transport than by the ordinary postal services 

 by means of rail and steamship. 



By an air service of 70 miles an hour — assuming 

 such to be maintainable — with two machines starting 

 daily each way respectively at 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., 

 the average delay would be reduced to 13 hours 

 19 minutes, as against an average of 22 hours 31 minutes 

 by the fast machine performing only one service a 

 day, and an average by the ordinary postal ser\-ice of 

 19 hours 12 minutes. A further increase in the fre- 



' Speed has its disadvantages from the point of view of 

 requiring greater space for landing and rising. The fast 

 machine that will land Uke the proverbial poached egg has not 

 yet been built, and many of the fast types land at a speed of 

 fifty to sixty miles an hour. In spite of this fact, however, it 

 must be taken that for regularity of service high speed is 

 essential. 



' Leave Hounslow 12.30. delivered Paris 4 p.m. 



* Leave London by night mail, delivered in Paris S a.m. 



