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The Dawn of Reason

The Dawn of Reason Aircraft Engineering THE MONTHLY SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ORGAN OF THE AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING PROFESSION VOL XXIII No 274 DECEMBER 1951 nificent block of offices which we had watched going up on a bombed site within almost a stone's throw of the office in which these lines N announcement appears on page 360 of this issue of the are being penned. appointment of M R J. S. MACLAY as Minister of Transport A and Civil Aviation, signifying the end of the Ministry of Civil Aviation as a separate Department of State. Dead Wood It may not be uninteresting to quote what we wrote in October The lines of demarcation between the Ministry and, for instance, 1944 on the first appointment of a Minister of Cabinet rank (LORD the Air Registration Board and the air transport Corporations have SWINTON) 'to devote his whole time to carrying forward the work of become extremely obscure and we have a strong feeling that with planning in the field of Civil Aviation, particularly in its interna­ the pruning that will presumably now be undertaken a good deal tional and imperial aspects'. of overlapping and unnecessary duplication will be eliminated. We see no reason, as one example, why the Air Registration Board We Quote should not be entrusted with the issue of the licences to Licensed Aircraft Engineers, on whose qualifications for the work which is 'This means,' we then wrote, 'that there are three Cabinet Ministers entrusted to them it is already the duty of the Board to adjudicate. dealing with air matters—the Secretary of State for Air, the Minister Most of the responsibility for the research and development work of Aircraft Production and the new Minister of Civil Aviation. on civil aircraft already rests with the Ministry of Supply (Air) This is, quite frankly, preposterous,' we continued. 'We are as which has its Director of Civil Aircraft Research and Development— fanatical as any believer in the importance of aviation, but that it as the pages of AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING testify—while the Air should require the full-time employment of three Ministers to cover Registration Board deals with airworthiness matters. its three facets is utterly ridiculous—the fact has only to be stated for its fantastic quality to be apparent. It is, therefore, manifestly Probably the most useful work done by the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been in connexion with the development of the various only a temporary state of affairs, destined to be brought to an end safety devices and regulations required for the operation of air at the end of the war at latest. The Ministry of Aircraft Production will presumably then be wound up, its raison d'être having dis­ transport. As will appear in Part 3 of the British Standard Glossary appeared, and we venture to think that shortly afterwards the of Aeronautical Terms which is due to be published shortly— Department of Civil Aviation will be merged in the Ministry of advance copies have already been circulated to those interested— a most complicated system of air-traffic and ground services has Transport. . . . Past experience has shown that if it is incorporated been built up which is, we believe, working reasonably satisfactory in the Air Ministry it is inevitably starved, as, and quite rightly, the activities of what is a service department primarily, and indeed in practice however bewildering and complex they read in print. exclusively, must be devoted to service affairs. .. . As a permanent arrangement, then, civil aviation should be a branch of the Ministry A Solecism of Transport.' This mention of the Glossary brings us to one of the last acts of Those in authority were not long in arriving at the same con­ the recently retired Minister of Civil Aviation (LORD OGMORE), clusion in regard to the Ministry of Aircraft Production which who announced, under his own name, that 'the official term for ceased to exist as a separate entity and was merged in the Ministry helicopter passenger stations in the future will be "Airstop" '. This of Supply—where it remains—on or about the time we had pre­ name, the Minister stated, was chosen by an unofficial selection dicted. We were, on the other hand, unjustifiably optimistic about committee composed of 'well-known men of letters'. What the the Ministry of Civil Aviation which has continued on its expansive standing of these gentlemen, capable of adding another to the few way till now. already existing horrors of new words coined by putting one noun as an adjectival prefix to another, we do not, in view of their The Proof anonymity, know. What we would like to do is to mark our dis­ approbation of the action of a Minister, by whomever advised, in It is always difficult to assess the attainments or arrive at a true deciding such a matter without having the courtesy to notify, let picture of the value, or otherwise, of a Government Department, as alone consult, a Committee which has been the officially recognized they have a habit of increasing in size under the ambitions of their authority on such things since 1910—and to which his Ministry temporary political and permanent civil servant heads and the more nominates a representative. grandiose they become the more cloistered and hidden from the external observer become many of their activities. Nothing that has One thing more, we hope that as a branch of the Ministry of Transport it will no longer be considered one of the duties of the transpired since 1944 has, however, led us to alter the view we then department to 'sell' air transport to the public. This activity may expressed and we have watched with considerable dismay the rapid growth of the Department from its small beginnings to the state have been excusable way back in the 1920s, but propaganda of when it surprisingly became the cuckoo-like occupant of the mag­ this nature should now be left to the air lines. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology Emerald Publishing

The Dawn of Reason

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology , Volume 23 (12): 1 – Dec 1, 1951
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0002-2667
DOI
10.1108/eb032106
Publisher site
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Abstract

Aircraft Engineering THE MONTHLY SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ORGAN OF THE AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING PROFESSION VOL XXIII No 274 DECEMBER 1951 nificent block of offices which we had watched going up on a bombed site within almost a stone's throw of the office in which these lines N announcement appears on page 360 of this issue of the are being penned. appointment of M R J. S. MACLAY as Minister of Transport A and Civil Aviation, signifying the end of the Ministry of Civil Aviation as a separate Department of State. Dead Wood It may not be uninteresting to quote what we wrote in October The lines of demarcation between the Ministry and, for instance, 1944 on the first appointment of a Minister of Cabinet rank (LORD the Air Registration Board and the air transport Corporations have SWINTON) 'to devote his whole time to carrying forward the work of become extremely obscure and we have a strong feeling that with planning in the field of Civil Aviation, particularly in its interna­ the pruning that will presumably now be undertaken a good deal tional and imperial aspects'. of overlapping and unnecessary duplication will be eliminated. We see no reason, as one example, why the Air Registration Board We Quote should not be entrusted with the issue of the licences to Licensed Aircraft Engineers, on whose qualifications for the work which is 'This means,' we then wrote, 'that there are three Cabinet Ministers entrusted to them it is already the duty of the Board to adjudicate. dealing with air matters—the Secretary of State for Air, the Minister Most of the responsibility for the research and development work of Aircraft Production and the new Minister of Civil Aviation. on civil aircraft already rests with the Ministry of Supply (Air) This is, quite frankly, preposterous,' we continued. 'We are as which has its Director of Civil Aircraft Research and Development— fanatical as any believer in the importance of aviation, but that it as the pages of AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING testify—while the Air should require the full-time employment of three Ministers to cover Registration Board deals with airworthiness matters. its three facets is utterly ridiculous—the fact has only to be stated for its fantastic quality to be apparent. It is, therefore, manifestly Probably the most useful work done by the Ministry of Civil Aviation has been in connexion with the development of the various only a temporary state of affairs, destined to be brought to an end safety devices and regulations required for the operation of air at the end of the war at latest. The Ministry of Aircraft Production will presumably then be wound up, its raison d'être having dis­ transport. As will appear in Part 3 of the British Standard Glossary appeared, and we venture to think that shortly afterwards the of Aeronautical Terms which is due to be published shortly— Department of Civil Aviation will be merged in the Ministry of advance copies have already been circulated to those interested— a most complicated system of air-traffic and ground services has Transport. . . . Past experience has shown that if it is incorporated been built up which is, we believe, working reasonably satisfactory in the Air Ministry it is inevitably starved, as, and quite rightly, the activities of what is a service department primarily, and indeed in practice however bewildering and complex they read in print. exclusively, must be devoted to service affairs. .. . As a permanent arrangement, then, civil aviation should be a branch of the Ministry A Solecism of Transport.' This mention of the Glossary brings us to one of the last acts of Those in authority were not long in arriving at the same con­ the recently retired Minister of Civil Aviation (LORD OGMORE), clusion in regard to the Ministry of Aircraft Production which who announced, under his own name, that 'the official term for ceased to exist as a separate entity and was merged in the Ministry helicopter passenger stations in the future will be "Airstop" '. This of Supply—where it remains—on or about the time we had pre­ name, the Minister stated, was chosen by an unofficial selection dicted. We were, on the other hand, unjustifiably optimistic about committee composed of 'well-known men of letters'. What the the Ministry of Civil Aviation which has continued on its expansive standing of these gentlemen, capable of adding another to the few way till now. already existing horrors of new words coined by putting one noun as an adjectival prefix to another, we do not, in view of their The Proof anonymity, know. What we would like to do is to mark our dis­ approbation of the action of a Minister, by whomever advised, in It is always difficult to assess the attainments or arrive at a true deciding such a matter without having the courtesy to notify, let picture of the value, or otherwise, of a Government Department, as alone consult, a Committee which has been the officially recognized they have a habit of increasing in size under the ambitions of their authority on such things since 1910—and to which his Ministry temporary political and permanent civil servant heads and the more nominates a representative. grandiose they become the more cloistered and hidden from the external observer become many of their activities. Nothing that has One thing more, we hope that as a branch of the Ministry of Transport it will no longer be considered one of the duties of the transpired since 1944 has, however, led us to alter the view we then department to 'sell' air transport to the public. This activity may expressed and we have watched with considerable dismay the rapid growth of the Department from its small beginnings to the state have been excusable way back in the 1920s, but propaganda of when it surprisingly became the cuckoo-like occupant of the mag­ this nature should now be left to the air lines.

Journal

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology – Emerald Publishing

Published: Dec 1, 1951

There are no references for this article.