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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0667.PDF
Flight, June 26, 1014, First Aero Weekly in the World. Founder and Editor : STANLEY SPOONER. A Journal devoted to the Interest*, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport. OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. No. 287. (No. 26, Vol. VI.)] JUNE 26, 1914. fRegistered at the G.P.O.T ["Weekly, Priee 3d. L as a Newspaper. J L Poat Tree, 3|d. Flight. Editorial Office: 44, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C. Telegrams: Truditur, Westrand, London. Telephone: Gerrard i8a8. Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free. United Kingdom ... is*, od. Abroad aor. ad. CONTENTS. • Editorial Comment: tsat. The New Naval Air Service - 667 Collision in the Air 668 The Race to Manchester and Back 66 Royal Flying Corps at Netheravon 670 Royal Aero Club Official Notices 8 From the British Flying Grounds 679 London-Manchester-London Race ... ... ... ... ... ... 681 Flying at Hendon 683 Eddies. By"iEolus" Royal Naval Air Service Re-organisation 686 The Trans-Atlantic Flight. Lieut. Porte's New Route 689 British Notes of the Week 690 The Flying Machine from an Engineering Standpoint. By F. W. Lanchester 691 Foreign Aircraft News a Models. Edited by V. E. Johnson, M.A 693 EDITORIAL COMMENT. From the Secretary of the Admiralty we ,.T **lj[e have received a most important Memo- W cov W ciVeil Air Service, randum, setting forth the details of the scheme of re-organisation of the Naval Air Service. The text of this Memorandum will be found on another page of this issue of FLIGHT, and from it will be seen that the Admiralty scheme is not so much one of re-organisation as of a complete re-casting of the whole organisation. In the first place, it constitutes probably the most whole-hearted admission that has ever been made of the enormously important place that air craft will have in the warfare of the future—nothing approximating to it has been announced by any other Power or by ourselves. Under the new scheme aircraft assume an almost more definitely important place in the organisation of the Navy than the submarine branch, since the latter remains a part of the Naval organisation as such, while the air service is given a place of its own which is practically separate and apart from the main trunk, as it were. We fully recognise that this is really not so when things are fully examined, and that the air service remains as much a part of the Navy as any other branch, but the point is that it is the only branch which is dignified by a separate establishment and organisation of its own—a sort of Imperium in Imperia. Undoubtedly this important departure—experiment it has been called, though we dislike the word as it is applied, for the reason that we can see nothing of the really experimental about it, but rather the outcome of a well-considered judgment—springs in great part from the keen personal interest which has been manifested in flying by Mr. Churchill ever since he took office as First Lord of the Admiralty. No Minister of our time has been at so much pains to become thoroughly acquainted with the work of his department as the present head of the Navy, with the result that probably no First Lord has at any period had so deep and thorough a knowledge of the work and needs of the Navy as Mr. Churchill. Apart from the main interest of this important scheme of re-organisation the principal feature of the new idea is that connected with the admission of civilian airmen to the ranks of the newly constituted service. This is a very distinct departure—even more so than the experi ment which was inaugurated nearly twenty years ago of transferring officers of the R.N.R. to the active list of the regular service. No distinction of rank, pay, or privileges will be made between officers entering from the Royal Navy or Royal Marines and those entering from civil life. In more ways than one this is a move of capital importance. It has been realised for a long time now that the Naval air service of the future will call for a very large number of officers and men who, under the existing scheme of things, can ill be spared from Fleet duties. Already the supply of combatant officers hardly keeps pace with the wastage caused by death, ill-health and retirement for various causes, and, if that is the case in a time of profound peace the problem must necessarily become a most serious one should we become involved in war with a great Naval Power. The possibilities of war wastage will be enormously enhanced by the em ployment of aircraft so that the problem of securing a sufficient number of trained officers to fill the gaps caused by casualties, already sufficiently serious, must necessarily be greatly magnified even to the point of impossibility of solution. It is evidently with this in view that the Admiralty has decided upon so drastic a departure from custom, for it is evidently the intention of the Whitehall authorities to gradually build up a large aerial corps which will in future become almost independent so far as the personnel is concerned of the combatant ranks of the Navy itself. Undoubtedly c
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