§ 61. Mr. RAPERasked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the danger to aircraft involved by the frequently sudden arrival of fog over various sections of the London-Paris air route, the Air Ministry will take steps to issue a Regulation making it compulsory for all passenger aircraft to be equipped with wireless telephony?
The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest)I agree as to the importance of wireless telephony or telegraphy in the circumstances stated. The International Convention on Aerial Navigation of 1919 provides (in Article 14) for W/T. apparatus being carried by aircraft used in public transport and capable of carrying 10 or more persons "when the methods of employing such apparatus shall have been determined by the International Commission for Air Navigation," a body which will be set up as soon as the Convention itself has been ratified by a majority of the signatory States. When the Convention has 398 been so ratified, it is proposed to issue Regulations making the carrying of W/T. by British aircraft compulsory. I may add that it has been meanwhile arranged that all large machines at present employed on the subsidised British Cross-Channel service shall be equipped with W/T. apparatus.