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Safety at Airports
R. B. Barnitz
Director, The Los Angeles Airport

It is significant of the progress of aviation that safety has come to be regarded as a primary factor in its undertakings. In the early, experimental and demonstration stages, safety was all but disregarded in the enthusiasm over the fact of actually causing heavier-than-air machines to leave the ground. In the period of the development of airplanes for war purposes, speed, flexibility, and adaptability to military stratagem were given first consideration. But today, with the rapid advancement of aviation as commercial transportation, safety comes into its own as the essential element of success.
By its very nature, as well as because of its novelty and the public's peculiar psychological reaction to the idea of flying, aviation must give much more attention to safety than has ever been given by rail or marine commerce. We who are connected with commercial aviation in any capacity know too well how aeronautical mishaps appeal to the sensation-loving press, and we may take fair warning that one accident outweighs ten thousand successful flights in the public judgment. And logical or illogical, we have to take the public judgment as it comes to us, rather than as we should like to have it.
But there is something to be said for the public's attitude, at that. The public will pay a little to go aloft for the thrill of an occasional joy op on its account. But the public will give generous support to aviation as a sound industry only when it is assured that aviation is engaged in a a safe and sober business of transportation. If a man pays to ride in an airplane from Los Angeles to New York City, the chances are that he wants to reach New York promptly rather more than he wants the experience. Unless aviation can assure him that he will arrive at his destination in safety and comfort, he will not patronize it. All the arguments are on the side of the public when it comes to demanding safety of aviation before aviation can claim to be a serious business rather than just a fascinating and daring game.

In discussing the relation of airports to safety in aviation, there is another phase of the subject which also occurs. That is the location and operation of airports in such a manner as to safeguard the persons and property of the non-flying public - those who live near the airport, and those who pay it visits to see what this flying business is all about. We have had not a few instances to record lately where airplane accidents, usually due to insufficient landing areas or bad layout ofrunways, have involved the well-known "innocent bystander," or the next door neighbor to the airport. Now, much as we may deplore his numerous existence at times, the "innocent bystander" is necessary "evil" in our activities. 

   The Airport is the place at which the public is brought into contact with aviation, taught its importance, and induced to give it deserved support. The public must be encouraged to stand by innocently a great deal if we are inoculate it with air-mindedness. But while it does so, the obligation to see that is protected from both its own innocence and our mistakes rest fully upon the airport administration. 
   Moreover, if we are to have airports reasonably accessible to the centers of population, we cannot expect that they will be altogether isolated from homes, factories, and the other appurtenances of settled communities. The protection of these by the proper traffic precautions and by sufficiency of airport size and layout will be alluded to further.
   Much, we are happy to say, has already been done to make airports safe. Those haphazard landing fields which were typical of a decade ago are rapidly disappearing from the landscape, and the half dozen abandoned pasture lots which formerly served the average city with airplane landing facilities are being replaced by one or two sizable areas, equipped with prepared runways, and offering some reasonable accommodations. While there is still a divergence of opinion with respect to the most suitable surfacing for landing areas, and while experimentation is still busy with the problem of airport lightning, we can take pleasure in the fact that a great deal of satisfactory surfacing and lighting has been accomplished in the last three or four years, and aviation is immeasurably safer and more assured by reason of these activities.
  AT LEAST tentative measures of traffic control have been achieved in most places, with definite signs of bringing order out of the chaos. Rigid regu-