FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1913
1913 - 0374.PDF
I/DHH) APRIL 5, 1913- THE NAVY AND AVIATION. ON Wednesday last week, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill, in explaining his memorandum on the Naval Estimates, made the following reference to aeronautics :— I pass from oil to air, that other great new topic to which my statement ought to refer. My right hon. friend (Col. Seely) entered very fully, lust week, into the progress and present position of Army aviation. The aeroplane service plays a much smaller part relatively in the naval organisation than it does in military affairs, and, of course, in the Navy as well as in the Army, it is in its infancy. This time last year the Navy had five machines and four trained pilots; to-day it has 40 machines and 60 pilots. The anomaly of our having more pilots than machines is due to the unexpected non-delivery of machines which have been ordered, but, owing to one difficulty and another, have been delayed in delivery. Twenty more machines are expected to be received in the next few weeks, and by the date of the manoeuvres in July we shall have 75 naval machines and 75 pilots. By the end of the new financial year, for which we are now providing, we shall have 100 pilots and considerably over 100 machines in the naval wing ; that will make, as I imagine, not far short of 300 aeroplanes between the Navy and the Army put together at the end of the year, which the House is now asked to provide for. My right hon. friend and I have presided over our respective departments during the whole of this very remarkable development, and I think the scale on which progress has been and is being made, and the rapidity with which the advance from nothing is being effected is really not a subject for levity and derision, with which I regretted to see one or two speakers in the recent debate were inclined to treat it. We have no reason to complain of the skill of our naval aviators. We have carefully studied the report of the Committee, but the Naval Flying Wing still use monoplanes ; we have nine monoplanes in use. We consider it necessary to use them for the purpose of reconnais sance, training, and scouting, and also in connection with the attack of submarines, an interesting by-product of this new form of war fare. It is also not so dangerous to alight on the water from a monoplane as to land on the unyielding surface of the earth, and no serious accidents have occurred with uny naval machine to any naval aviator. We believe that the various types of hydro-aeroplanes which we have evolved and which are now being delivered, some of which will carry guns, and which are .fitted with wireless with a range of 60 miles, and which can rise and descend in comparatively rough waters, are, to put it very modestly, certainly as good as any thing which exists abroad, and from the result of prolonged exercises during the past year at the various naval stations with hydro-aero planes and submarines, and in conjunction with the patrol flotilla, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary that there should be a chain of hydro-aeroplane stations at various points on the British coast line for naval scouting purposes and for working with the patrol flotilla. Stations are being rapidly established, and a number will be complete in the course of the present year. The problem of carrying aeroplanes in ships is also receiving attention, and a cruiser has been detached for this service. Altogether, com pared with other navies, the British Aeroplane service has started very well; the preliminary difficulties have been surmounted, and we shall be able now to move steadily forward in several promising directions. I have a less satisfactory account to give of airships. Naval airship developments were retarded by various causes in this country. The mishap which destroyed the " May Fly " or the " Won't Fly," as it will be more accurate to call it, at Harrow, was a very serious set back to the development of Admiralty policies in airships. It happened to coincide with a moment of depression in Germany. It is only within the last 12 months that our enterprising neighbours have begun to reap the fruit of so many years of experiment and expense, and up to a very late period it was doubtful whether any valuable military results would be achieved. It is evident that the time has arrived when we must develop long-range airships of the largest type ; that cannot be achieved by an impatient gesture, nor by scattering money wildly, and the following measures are all which we consider useful to propose at the present time. First, our naval airship section has l>een established, and five officers and 50 men have, by the courtesy of the War Office, been trained at Farnborough with the military airships. Secondly, two medium-sized non-rigid airships have been purchased for training and experimental purposes. One of these, the Astra Torres, is almost completed, and will shortly be undergoing trials. Another, a Parseval, has an envelope completed, and the car is nearing completion. Provision is made in the Estimates for a double airship shed in the Medway valley ; two others are already available for use, and steps are being taken to establish other large sheds in suitable districts. As the development of the naval personnel and accommodation for airships proceeds —these are antecedent conditions—we shall order other airships. We also propose to enlist the services of some great British manufacturing firm in the construction of rigid airships, and negotiations are on foot which will lead to that result. The money taken in the new financial year for the Naval Air Service is about £321,000, which, added to that taken by the Army for their aeroplane service, makes a total for the year of about £850,000. I do not think it would be practicable to spend a larger sum of money without wasting it at the present time. No reproaches are deserved by the Admiralty for any time that has been lost in the development of dirigible airships. I do not suppose there is any Admiralty in the world which runs more risks and spends more money on new ideas and new experiments than we do. It will be found that before these vessels emerge from the experimental stage and become, within the restricted limits of their military action, a really potent factor, we shall be provided both with the means of using the advantages which they offer, and of combating the dangers which they threaten. Meanwhile I do trust that we are not going to have any silly panic language used about the dangers we are sup posed to run. If war breaks out to-morrow, foreign airships no doubt might do a certain amount of mischief and damage before they got smashed up, which would not be very long; but it is foolish to suppose that in their present stage of development they could produce results which would decisively influence the course of events. The hon. gentleman opposite made our flesh creep the other night, by suggest ing the dropping of bombs from airships on the House of Commons. If that event should happen, I am confident that the members of this House would gladly embrace the opportunity of sharing the perils which the soldiers and the sailors have to meet. My right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War, who, like all his prede cessors, comes in for a great deal of criticism when the Army Estimates come round, has, however, made arrangements which will shortly be completed, to distribute 30 or 40 guns, with improvised mountings, capable of vertical fire, at places of military significance, and a better and more powerful gun is being manufactured in sufficient numbers owned by the Army and the Navy as quickly as possible, and which will be ready towards the end of autumn. The results of the trials of these improved guns have greatly encouraged those who disbelieved in airships as effective machines in war apart from scouting. A number of vertical searchlights of a satisfactory pattern for night firingare nearly completed. In these circumstances I trust that the public, without losing interest or failing to give us support, will await future developments with composure and sobriety. On the following day the debate was continued, and Mr. A. Lee said : The theory of the Government in making aviation a joint concern of the Army and Navy was perfectly right, but it made it very difficult to bring to book the people really responsible for the deplorable position of this country in aviation. The characteristic modesty with which the First Lord dealt with this subject as regarded the Navy was in such refreshing contrast to the attitude of the Secretary for War that his remarks almost disarmed criticism. They were bound to endorse the implied reproof which the First Lord conveyed to his colleague, the Secretary for War. He agreed that the work done in connection with hydroplanes was deserving of the highest praise. It was the general opinion on the Continent that in hydroplanes we were leading. With regard to airships, the Admiralty had placed two orders abroad, but he was told by experts that by no means the best type was ordered. There was some suggestion of a large rigid airship being built in this country. Was that all the Admiralty was doing in this matter ? Was the Admiralty really satisfied that our dockyards, magazines, and other naval establishments were secure against the possibility of serious overhead attack ? If it did not satisfy, how did the right hon. gentleman propose to protect them ? Obviously, the provision now made was entirely inadequate. Did Mr. Churchill consider that the question of secret rendezvous for a fleet at sea in time of war was not seriously affected by the new problem of airships? The First Lord had said that Zeppelins were not potent factors, and were more or less experimental. Yet they had made several good performances in fine weather, and we occasionally had fine weather in these islands. Nothing could alter the fact that, even if we had made a fair advance in these matters from nothing in the last twelve months, there had been inexcusable delay in the past. Lord Charles Beresford said as to the question of aircraft, he believed it would revolutionise war. It had removed one of our great natural defences, the fact that we are an island, and he deplored the fact that the Government had not taken a more serious view both in regard to the Army and Navy. The Home Secretary's idea of saying, "Come down there and I'll put you into prison " was nonsense. There was only one man in the House who could have invented it. He hoped the Government would look into the matter 38O
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
