30

effect of stabilising detailed planning and implementation and avoiding wasted effort due to concentration on non-essentials and mutually conflicting activities. 71. In spite of planning which has been undertaken by departments and committees, we see evidence of some of these faults in New Zealand, and, while fully conscious that nowhere have they been avoided, we think it right to point out some of the principles which govern successful planning and make suggestions with regard to the methods by which it can be carried out. Since the bulk of civil aviation development, and certainly the vital heart of it, is and must continue to be organised air transport, planning must start with the need of the country for air transport —that is, with the air services, internal and international, to be operated. In effect, everything else follows from this in the sequence : (a) Air services—-internal and international. (b) Aerodrome and air route construction and equipment. (c) Aeronautical radio communications and navigation aids. (d) Meteorological services. (e) Air traffic control services. There is little priority as between (c), (d), and (e), but the order of (a), (b), and the remainder is fundamental. 72. In Part I of this Report (paragraph 48) we have made certain comments on the usefulness of standing committees, whether for planning or for co-ordination of the administration or operation of civil aviation. Government have appointed an Aerodromes Committee, whose function is "to report on the number and location of aerodromes necessary for civil aviation and the work required to bring existing aerodromes up to a satisfactory standard for internal air services." The committee is composed of a number of high-ranking officers of Government (both civil and service) and of the National Airways Corporation. We have been privileged to meet the committee and to study the minutes of the meetings of the committee. We observe that the committee is called on at its meetings to deal with a considerable volume of current problems arising at aerodromes, which in our view are the business of the departments concerned. We were informed that, while the committee required to know National Airways' programme for the development of air services, as a basis for the committee's work, it had not yet been fully informed on this. The impression we got is that the committee has been given a task which is in the second phase of planning, while the first phase, which is undoubtedly the responsibility of Government, has not been undertaken by Government and is not sufficiently worked out to enable the committee to make progress. Secondly, we feel that the time of a number of important officers is being wasted in discussion of matters of detail, which should be disposed of in the ordinary course