The Impact of Air Transport on World Affairs

CHAIRMAN: The First Vice-President, Mr. Alexander Stark, Q.C.

MR. STARK: We are signally honoured today in the presence of Sir Gerard d'Erlanger, C.B.E., Chairman of the world famous B.O.A.C. Two days ago Sir Gerard flew directly to Toronto from England to inaugurate the new Jet Comet Service; and to announce as well the joint schedules worked out in close cooperation with our own Trans-Canada Airlines and the B.O.A.C. Thus begins a new era in air travel, linking our City with the country that we still proudly call our Motherland in the amazing time of 6 or 7 hours. It is most fitting, therefore, that The Empire Club of Canada should do honour today to this great leader.

Sir Gerard, who is still in his early 50s and is himself a qualified pilot, has been flying for 32 years. He was educated at Eton; was admitted as a Chartered Accountant in 1933; and was a member of the Stock Exchange for five years. But the movements of the Stock Exchange, whether up or down, were not for him. Twenty-five years ago he became a director of Hillman Airways; and when in 1935 that Company was merged with other operating Companies to form British Airways, he was appointed a director of the new Company. This Company soon developed routes from the United Kingdom into Europe. Then in 1939 British Airways and Imperial Airways were merged into B.O.A.C. and in 1940 Sir Gerard joined the Board of that Corporation.

Our guest played a vital role in the past War. As the war clouds gathered, Sir Gerard was asked to found and create an organization to ferry military aircraft and to undertake auxiliary air transportation in the event of war. This organization became known as the Air Transport Auxiliary and for six years Sir Gerard was its Commanding Officer. At its peak period its personnel included over 800 pilots and it was responsible for the delivery of more than 350,000 military aircraft. Throughout the War our guest continued as an active pilot of all types of military aircraft.

Sir Gerard was a founder of British European Airways and was its first Managing Director. Since 1954 he has occupied his present responsible post as Chairman of B.O.A.C. as well as holding other important industrial and commercial posts. He received his Knighthood in the 1958 New Year's Honours.

You will be interested to know that not content with flying through the air, his chief hobby and recreation is sailing on the sea. Our guest is married and has one son and two daughters.

And now it is with great pleasure I introduce to you Sir Gerard d'Erlanger, who will address us on the subject "The Impact of Air Transport on World Affairs".

SIR GERARD WERLANGER: At the risk of possibly stating the obvious, I have chosen this title for my talk today because I don't believe that any of us fully appreciate the way in which air transportation has developed and how it is affecting all our lives particularly in the Commonwealth and the free world.

Taking individual examples, first, I was privileged to attend a lunch on the 18th of February, given by the Lord Mayor of London in our famous Guildhall to do honour to:

H.R.H. Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh

Their R.H. the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and H.R.H. Princess Alexandra of Kent.

This was a very special occasion because the purpose of the function was to enable the people of the City of London, through their Lord Mayor, to pay tribute to those members of the Royal Family in respect of their extensive journeys throughout the Commonwealth in the preceding months. Travelling largely by air (and incidentally also largely by B.O.A.C.) in a relatively short space of time individually they visited countless places throughout the Commonwealth, including many in Canada, a diversity of places and journeys it would not otherwise have been possible to cover. During the course of his address Prince Philip said:

"These journeys were nothing if not human and personal occasions. I believe," he continued, "that the thing is that we remind people of ideals which they respect and admire--I think that on these occasions they generously ignore the blemishes of our history and only remember the best." Prince Philip was simply stating that it is personal contacts that really matter and air travel makes personal contacts ever easier and speedier.

Take another series of notable and very extensive journeys undertaken last year to great numbers of places in Europe and to the East by the President of the United States in the space of ten days on two journeys. How otherwise than with the advent of air travel would it be possible for the Head of the United States to see and hear, be seen and be heard by such a variety and multitude of people, with the obvious result of better understanding.

During his visit to London in a broadcast, President Eisenhower made this statement, which I believe to be significant and fundamental:

"I like to believe that the people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than are Governments. I think people want peace so much that one of these days Governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

This is a clear statement which in my opinion reflects the situation which Governments have achieved; maybe they had no alternative but we at home have recently been informed that the best we can hope for under present circumstances is four minutes warning of our impending doom, and I don't suppose you over here have many more minutes notice coming to you.

Now people can only promote peace by getting to know each other, by understanding each other's problems and viewpoints. We are not all alike and there is no use pretending otherwise, but at least by contact, conversation and observation at first hand we can get to a point of understanding and respect which no amount of printed material can achieve, and this again is where air transportation is revolutionizing the scene.

Some 100,000,000 people travelled by air last year, excluding U.S.S.R. and China for which we have no figures, and yet we are probably only on the threshold of the air age.

Incidentally, on the subject of the U.S.S.R., surely the endless and world-wide journeyings by air of Mr. Khrushchev must help to make for better understanding and the removal of misunderstandings and whilst he keeps travelling and talking there is hope.

Now why do I say that we are only on the threshold of the air age? In the past twelve years the growth of air travel has been phenomenal. We in the air-transport industry employ certain technical terms for measuring size and growth and one of them is "passenger miles". This is a term with which you are probably quite familiar, but, if you are not, I should assure you that it does not represent--as the uninitiated might suspect--the distance our passengers would stretch if laid out end to end! "Passenger miles" are--passengers times the distance they fly--and are a realistic yardstick in making comparisons and assessing progress. Well, passenger miles in these past twelve years have increased nearly six times over. Yet I say we have hardly begun. I believe that the jet era we are now entering will for two main reasons stimulate air travel more than anything we have known. These are the ease and comfort of jet air travel and the promise they bring of being able to extend ever-lower fares to ever broadening groups of people. Airfares have not followed inflation; airfares are now in many instances cheaper than in previous years.

Yes, the public has hardly begun to taste the fruits of flying. Here in your great country of Canada you have appreciated more than many people how the speed and versatility of the aeroplane can be exploited to conquer distance and terrain. I am sure you must be particularly proud of possessing one of the Commonwealth's largest and leading airlines--Trans Canada Airlines--and it gives me great pleasure to refer to the agreement of association that B.O.A.C. has made with its old friend.

As from the first of this month that new association will ensure the fullest co-operation between our two organisations. It is an agreement designed to be not only of material benefit to both of us but also to appeal to the interests of all air travellers as well as those who send their goods by air.

For B.O.A.C. the first of March was also a very special occasion for another important reason. On that day we inaugurated our first service to link Toronto with the United Kingdom, and, of course, from thence on to our vast aerial network extending to the continents of Africa, Asia and Australasia. You can now fly on all our routes from here on our Comet 4 jets like the one which brought me here, as well as our Britannias. We are happy that, by giving this new service to Toronto, we have forged a link between the centre of industry in Canada and the heart of England's industrial north for now it is possible to travel with us between several great cities in our two countries ... London, Manchester, Glasgow, Montreal and Toronto. Such a service must surely play a great part in strengthening the bond of friendship that already exists between Ontario and the United Kingdom.

We airline people are essentially what is called today "forward looking", thriving on progress, impatient for more, yet at a time when we are celebrating the forging of the first jet link by a Comet airliner between London and Toronto, I feel that it is appropriate to look back for a moment and especially to recall that Canada was the scene, just over 50 years ago, of the first powered flight in the Commonwealth.

On 23rd February, 1909, John McCurdy, a British subject, wrote a page of Canadian history on an ice-covered bay in Nova Scotia with a flying machine called "Silver Dart". McCurdy flew for three quarters of a mile at a height of 60 feet. In doing so he introduced to the Commonwealth not only an epoch-making flight but also the tricycle undercarriage and the aileron, which even today are considered by many people to be Canada's greatest contribution to world-wide aviation. On 24th February, McCurdy flew the "Silver Dart" again, this time making a flight of four-and-a-half miles. The following day he flew a very creditable 20 miles in a single flight and in the weeks and months that followed he went on to make about 200 successful flights. But, on 2nd August, the "Silver Dart" met its demise during a landing in the soft sand at Petawawa, which caused the aircraft to flip over. It was completely written off, but it and its pilot had made a proud contribution to the birth of Canada's air tradition which has been nurtured to such tremendous effect in the past 50 years.

Yet it was not really until World War I was well into its stride that the potential of the aircraft as a weapon of war was fully realised. The needs of war stimulated development to such an extent that in 1919, very soon after the war was over, the first regular daily international air service was started. It was British and linked London and Paris. By now it was apparent that a great future lay ahead of air transportation. In 1919, on the 14th of June, the first transatlantic crossing by air was made by those British immortals, Alcock and Brown. They took off from Newfoundland, now part of this great country, in a twin-engined biplane, and landed 16 hours 27 minutes later in peat bog in Ireland. Their cruising speed was between 90 and 100 m.p.h.

Today a B.O.A.C. Comet can make the crossing from Newfoundland to the Irish coast in just under four hours travelling at a speed of some 500 m.p.h. at a height of eight miles. Again, however, there was quite an appreciable lapse of time--18 years--before, in 1937, Imperial Airways, one of B.O.A.C.'s parent companies, launched the first experimental, commercial trans-Atlantic flights with modified Empire Flying Boats at the same time as Pan American Airways started their service with Clipper Ills. Those two flying boats, which could cruise at about 130 m.p.h., passed each other, going in opposite directions, in mid-Atlantic in the early hours of 6th July, 1937. But, it was not until a year later, that a commercial load was carried across the Atlantic by Mercury, the top half of a composite aircraft. The load included a half a ton of special films, photographs and newspapers depicting a Royal visit to Paris and it was delivered from London to Montreal and New York. Again, it was a war that was to provide the great impetus that enabled the aircraft industry to out-pace itself and again Canada figured in a great British air enterprise. Shortly after the start of World War II B.O.A.C. began to operate the great Atlantic ferry service out of Montreal. The first formation of bombers built on this side of the Atlantic crossed over to the U.K. in the autumn of 1940 to be the forerunner of a steady stream of aircraft crossing the Atlantic in both directions. Then, in 1941, B.O.A.C. started the first return ferry service to this country with converted Liberator bombers.

Since the end of World War 11 there has been an amazing increase in trans-Atlantic air travel and last year more than one and a half million people made the crossing by air. They owe much to the men--including some notable Canadian pilots--who pioneered the first regular year-round Atlantic air service in the dark, challenging days of war.

Yes, more than a million and a half people flew the Atlantic last year. Yet we were only just entering the jet age. After all, it was only in the autumn of 1958 that the first pure jet two-way crossing of the Atlantic was made when a B.O.A.C. Comet 4 linked London and New York.

Now the big jets are coming along fast with their great size, range and speed they are perfectly suited to the ocean crossing, they will, inter alia, bring London within seven hours flying time of Toronto. In fact, it has become one of the simple facts of life that no two great cities of the world need be more than 36 hours jet-time apart.

I hope by now I have made it clear why I chose as the title for my talk "The Impact of Air Transport on World Affairs". This impact is terrific and is affecting all our lives whatever our walk of life may be, whatever our occupation may be. Heads of State now make a habit of visiting each other and seeing the people of distant lands. Refugees are taken in a matter of hours away from their misery to pastures new; mail-freight--of every inaccessible are opened up, as you in this vast country of such immense potential can testify by much experience. One of the most striking examples of this sort of development is to be found in Brazil, where they are building their new capital, Brazilia, way in the heart of their country. The only access is by air and, though I have not seen it, I am told that all materials for the construction of this remarkable new city are being flown in. The Brazilians, incidentally, provide a shining example of an imaginative and energetic people seizing the opportunities that the aeroplane has given them for bypassing the natural obstacles to other forms of transport in developing a vast country. They will tell you their transport system has progressed almost directly from ox-cart to aeroplane. Sweating it out in one of Rio's famous traffic jams, one is inclined to have momentary doubts about that statement, but they evaporate in face of what seems virtually a continuous stream of aeroplanes leaving and arriving at Brazil's airports.

On a personal note, jet travel enabled me at the end of January to leave London on a Monday evening and arrive for a cocktail party in Santiago in Chile Tuesday afternoon. A few days later I left Buenos Aires after breakfast and dined in New York. These sort of journeys enable one to make personal contacts that otherwise would be quite out of the question.

What they do to the human frame is another matter. I used to have one--now I have an airframe! Personally I find the physical effects entirely pleasurable and see no prospect of the human body failing to keep up with the march of technical progress in civil aviation. Sharp, rapid changes of climate and clock time seem to be accepted fairly readily by our bodies. No, it is our minds that must be attuned to jet age travel. I find it a fascinating contradiction of flying today that the jet-powered aircraft flies so smoothly, so fast, so high and, often, so far without making a stop that one is barely conscious of having travelled at all. It frequently requires a determined effort to forget where I have come from and to remember where I am! The human mind needs to be alert and active to adapt itself to radical changes of environment, custom, and people, in so short a time.

This is a situation I find entirely stimulating and subject to no dangers but complacency and lack of imagination--two characteristics of which we in aviation at least can hardly be accused, no matter what our other faults may be. On the subject of safety, it is now ten times safer to travel by air than it was ten years ago--it has been said "you are more likely to die being kicked by a mule than in an aeroplane."

Civil aviation has become an integral part of modern life, speeding decisions and actions by enabling men, mail and materials to move around the globe at very high speed.

Air transport can sustain prosperity where it is found and can promote it where it does not yet exist. But, if air transport helps to promote world economic improvement, that improvement will also reflect back on air transport for, with a wider spread of wealth, air travel will certainly increase. Large numbers of people who have the money but cannot afford the time to travel slowly, are now being offered the chance to visit their friends and relatives and places of interest in faraway lands.

The main hold-up to the extension of air travel is the economic one--that is the ability or willingness of passengers and shippers to afford the passenger fare or the freight rate which the operating costs of air transport make it necessary to charge. Meanwhile, the economic aim of the air transport industry must be to bring cost down to levels that can be afforded by more people. From the cargo point of view, the jetliners of the 1960s are likely to bring substantial increases in the volume of freight holds and carrying capacity. It is therefore very necessary to adapt cargo-handling arrangements to the jet age. All airlines are at present carrying out an overhaul of warehousing techniques and research into the possibility of greater mechanisation in order to speed cargo handling and loading.

Looking ahead Britain is now actively studying the problem of supersonic travel. This encouraging news has come from the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Duncan Sandys, who has indicated that the British Government is prepared to back the study of a supersonic civil airliner. Such an aircraft would complete the North Atlantic crossing in a very short time indeed, maybe in even two hours. A project of this kind would obviously have tremendous prestige value and would vastly speed up communications.

These are all aspirations with which Canada should be, and undoubtedly will be, intensely concerned. In the years since McCurdy's proud pioneering, Canadian interest in aviation has grown to such an extent that Canada is now among the five leading aircraft producing countries in the world. There are today approximately 7,100 scientific and engineering personnel in the industry and its associated companies in Canada, a considerable part of the country's total scientific potential. Directly and indirectly more than 100,000 people are engaged in the Canadian aircraft industry.

This interest is reflected and maintained, as you know, by bodies such as the Canadian National Research Council in Ottawa and the Institute of Aerophysics at the University of Toronto. The Council maintains laboratories for research into problems concerning turbo-jet engines, icing, fuels and hydraulic fluids. The Institute, looking further into the future, is investigating the problems likely to be encountered in supersonic flight. It is also receiving grants from the Canadian Defence Research Board to carry out detailed studies in boundary layers and heat transfer problems in supersonic flow.

In closing let me look back once more for a moment to get this matter into perspective. About 450 years ago, long before this Continent was discovered, the great thinker, philosopher, painter and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, was drawing up a specification for an aeroplane. He wrote:

"The movement ought always to be above the clouds so that the wings may not get wet. Also, so as to escape the danger of gusts and eddies of winds among the mountain defiles and if moreover the machine should be overturned you will have plenty of time to turn it back again."

There was then an interval of 400 years during which, air-wise, nothing much happened. But how we have made up for lost time within this century as demonstrated today as we celebrate these two aviation milestones--the new Anglo-Canadian commercial air agreement and Toronto's first jet air service. I hope, in fact I know--that these achievements that have brought us together in this room today will also bring our two countries, and their peoples, even closer to each other than they already are. I am sure that, as milestones, they will mark for the future a stage in the further linking up of the common bond and interests of our two great countries and a further material step forward in Commonwealth co-operation.

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Mr. Henry R. Jackman.