FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1912
1912 - 1127.PDF
Flight, December y, 1912. First Aero Weekly in the World. A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport. OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. No. 206. (No. 49. Vol. IV.)] DECEMBER 7, 1912. f Registered at the G.P.O.1 ["Weekly, Prion 8< L as a Newspaper. J |_ Poiitjfcfnn, 8W. Sd. Uiig Editorial Office: 44, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C. Telegrams: Truditur, Westrand, London. Telephone: Gcrrard 1828. Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free. United Kingdom ... 15.S. od. Abroad zoj. orf. CONTENTS: Editorial Comment : Gun versus Aeroplane ... ... •<• ••• ... ••• ... ••» Types of Aircraft Men of Moment in the World of Flight: Sir George White, Bart., J.P., Founder and Chairman of the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, Ltd. ; President of the Bristol and West of England Aero Club The " Water Hen " (with scale drawings) Aviation Pen Pictures from the Seat of War Flying at Hendon From the British Flying Grounds Questions in Parliament Eddies. By " Oiseau Bleu" Artificial Wing Flight Where Aeroplanes are Built Foreign Aviation News Models. Edited by V. E. Johnson, M.A Testing the Thrust of Screw-Propellers for Model Aeroplanes. By C. T. Pollit Correspondence 1127 1130 1129 II33 IJ37 1138 1138 1141 1142 1144 1146 1148 1150 1152 "54 EDITORIAL COMMEHT. " It is impossible to carry on warfare unless we Gun have the mastery of the air." Ae'roXne Thus sPoke General Sir James Grierson at the Aeronautical Society's meeting last Wednesday week. And when so distinguished an officer as Sir James Grierson starts plain speaking of this sort it is high time that everyone else should sit up and take notice. When the above expression has been read and re-read so as thoroughly to impress itself upon the mind, its magnitude is staggering and the very transparency of its truth is overwhelming. For ourselves, we have always believed as much, but then we do not profess to be soldiers, and in any case it needs an officer of General Grierson's rank to crystallise the situation in a single sentence that is unimpeachable. We hope that Sir James Grierson's words will, metaphorically speaking, be woven on a flag and run up to the masthead in every aerodrome j for they deserve to go down to history as the nation's motto in aeronautics. They constitute by far the most clear sighted statement that any prominent man has yet made on the subject, and we doubt very much whether anyone will find words better suited to express the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Let everyone remember them, and above all let the Government see to it that the nation does not lack means to put them into effect before it is too late to try. Perhaps those who were at the Aeronautical Society's meeting may have been in a better position fully to appreciate the significance of Sir James Grierson's words than are those who merely read them at the commence ment of a page of print. The occasion on which they were spoken was a memorable one. There have been no discussions at the Aeronautical Society's meetings equal to those that have dealt with the aeroplane in war; and when General Stone broached the subject of aero planes as targets for the artillery, it was a foregone conclusion that the evening was to be full of interest. Everyone has been very anxious to know what the gunners think of aircraft as targets, and if we may judge from the remarks of General Stone and other speakers who were qualified to express an opinion, we should say that, from their point of view, the aerial machine is a pretty bad lot altogether. As far as we could gather, artillery officers have the smallest possible opinion of their chances of hitting aeroplanes or dirigibles; and for the moment, at any rate, it would look as if it would be more by accident than design that any man-bird is likely to get winged in flight during war. Following, as it has done, upon previous meetings of the Society, in which war aeroplanes have been the subject of discussion, it cannot be denied that General Stone's evening carried the subject a real stage further. Speaking from the layman's point of view, the one thing we wanted cleared up was just this question as to how much danger the military aeroplane might expect to find in the land artillery. On the answer to that question depends the significance of guns on aircraft themselves, and when Major Sykes, who commands the military wing of the Royal Flying Corps, advanced the opinion that the best plan would be not to spend money on elaborate air-targets for the artillery, but to spend it on flying machines that could carry guns up into the air with them, he struck the right nail on the head very hard; we hope everyone else in the room agreed with him. Opinion on this aspect of the case is all the more significant inasmuch as General Stone purposely approached the problem from the other side by assuming that it was the work of the artillery to fire at the enemy's aeroplanes, and by drawing attention to the main fact that the artillery, as at present constituted, had had
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
