Imperial Air Routes

Bibliographic Data

ID4611744
AuthorsFrederick Henry Sykes (corresponding author)
Year1920
Volume55
Issue4
Pages241
Publication date1920-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1781731
OpenAlexW2316571947
LanguageEN
Citations received9

IAM very glad to have the opportunity of addressing the RoyalGeographical Society to-night on some of the attributes of Imperial air routes.The interest of your Fellows on a purely geographical basis will, I know, be of much assistance both to individual airmen and to those, like myself, responsible for some parts of Imperial air organization as a whole.But there is a further reason why I welcome this opportunity.Your Society has always been to the fore in Imperial movements, and the subject on which I am about to address you to-night will therefore, I hope, be of special interest to you, although I can, in the time at my disposal, deal only with a few of its many problems and anxieties.Your confidence and support will help us to overcome these. Beforepassing to the main subject, I think it important to refer for a moment to the remarkable evolution which aviation has undergone in recent years.It is sometimes difficult not to forget that when the war broke out the scierrce was but a dozen years old.Although on 14 October 1897 M. Ader's "Avion," carrying a pilot, lifted itself off the ground, it was only on 17 December 1903 that the Wright brothers made their first practical free flight through the air in a power-driven machine, and thereby heralded a new era in the history of the world.It was only on 25 July 1909 that Ble*riot made the first crossing of the Channel by aeroplane.The controlling factors in aviation are still imperfectly understood, but there is something very-striking in the strange sequence of events whereby the problem of flight was solved just in time to assist in the conduct of the war and in the achievement of victory, gaining in the process incredible impetus to its development.The science of aeronautics is now endeavouring to spread its young wings in the service of peace an.d for the expansion of industry, not only in the Imperial Commonwealth, but throughout the world

Geography · International Law and Aviation

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