The romantic story of Colonel Lindbergh who, by his superb flight from New York to Paris in 1927, earned a place among the immortals. This chapter is concluded from part 16.
In this chapter many important practical aspects of the career of the civil pilot are reviewed. Details of the qualifications necessary and of the prospects are clearly outlined, and the many subjects upon which this chapter touches indicates how varied and interesting is the work of the civil pilot.
It is a tribute to the enterprise and efficiency of the Dutch that the initials KLM are known throughout the world as representing high standards of progress in civil air transport. The Dutch were among the first people in Europe to make a commercial success of fast, long-distance transport by air. Although Holland is a small country, her colonial possessions are large, populous and valuable. The extensive Netherlands East Indies have been brought within six days of Amsterdam by air and the whole of Europe within one day.
The normal aero engines of today works on the same principle as the ordinary motor car engine. This chapter describes the various types of aero engines in use today. These are generally in-line, V or radial types of power unit. There is no need to stress the importance of the power unit of the modern aircraft, and this series will deal authoritatively with the many different types of aero engine now in use.
The study of the weather uses as its raw material the observations made at numerous stations distributed over a wide area. Each country has an official weather service, which maintains a number of stations. All the observations are sent to the headquarters of the meteorological service and the observations are plotted on large-scale charts. This chapter describes this process and explains what the symbols, lines and figures mean on meteorological diagrams.
Few people realize that only a small area of the world has been accurately surveyed and mapped. The greater part of the world is inadequately surveyed, as the maps are on scales smaller than 1:100,000. In the British Empire about four-fifths of the total area is inadequately mapped. The work of the pioneers of air survey has brought the science to the stage where its benefits are available not only to Governments, public bodies and large mining, engineering, railway, electrical and other undertakings, but also to the individual farmer, prospectors and citizen at a cost within his means. This chapter describes the work of the air survey companies used throughout the British Empire. The article is concluded in part 18.
