Development of Air Transport During the War

Extract

The heading of this lecture is the “Development of Air Transport During the War” but because time is limited I have had to exclude any mention of the ferry organisation which was responsible for the delivery by air of many thousands of aircraft. The work has however been, described in “The Atlantic Bridge.” The period with which I propose to deal is the 21 months ending in September, 1946. In this short period, in response to the demands of war, the Transport services of the Royal Air Force flew rather more passenger miles than did British Civil Aviation in the preceding 21 years up to the same date, and carried in addition great quantities of freight and military stores. This volume of transport flying, packed into a few short months, gave rise to many problems but also afforded unique opportunities for testing out new ideas and new equipment. My purpose tonight is to give a brief account of what was accomplished, and against this background to examine some of the lessons which were learned and the ideas for the future to which they gave rise.