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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0001.PDF
Flight, January 3, 1918. ENGINEER? First Aero Weekly in the World. Founder and Editor : STANLEY SPOONER. 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. 471. (No. 1, Vol. X.) JANUARY 3, 1918. "Weekly, Price 3d.Post Free, 4d. and The Aircraft Engineer. EditoriatOfiii,-: 36, GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSW Telegrams: Truditur, W'estcent, London. Telephone: Geir, Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free. United Kingdom ... 15J. -2d. Abroad... CONTENTS. Kditorial Comment: •The Constitution of the Air Council .. A New Year ScandalGermany and Air Raid-. Our Own Policy of Reprisals The Dangers of State Control New Year Honours Constitution of the Air Council The 260 h.p. Mercedes Aero Kn^inc The Roll of Honour " X " Aircraft Raids The Royal Aero Club. Official Notices The Probable Trend of Aeroplane IHi-ri. I'.y R. I'. Mann Answers to Correspondents Airisms from the Four Winds The British Air Services Aircraft Work at the Front. Official Informati >i International Aircraft Standards Personals Aviation in Parliament Side-Winds Company Matters , W.C. 2- IS2S. 23 =4 28 NOTICE OF REMOVAL. The Offices—Editorial and Advertisement—of " FLIGHT and The Aircraft Engineer " are now at 36, GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C. 2. Telephone No. : Gerrard 1828. Teleg. Address : " Truditur, Westcent, London." " Newspapers are an essential part of our war organisation."— (Sir Auckland Gcddes, Minister of National Service). JY an Order in Council issued during the closing days of the old year, His Majesty has given effect to the Air Force Act in setting forth the manner in which members of the Air Council are to be appointed and the allocation of their several duties. In its constitu- tion the Air Council, as was generally expected, closely follows the organisation of the Board of Admiralty. It is to consist of nine principal members, exclusive of the President, who is given the standing of a Principal Secretary of State. There is a Chief of the Air Staff, assisted by a Deputy Chief ; a Master-General of Personnel ; a Controller-General of Equipment ; a Director- General of Aircraft Production, who will be appointed TheConstitution of theAir Council. and work under the Ministry of Munitions ; an Administrator of Works and Buildings ; and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who will sit in the Commons when the Secretary of State is a peer, and in the Upper House when his chief is a commoner. In addition, the Order provides for " two additional members," whose duties are not, in the meantime, specified. The Order also mentions an Inspector- General of the Air Force, but this appointment, for some reason which seems obscure, does not appear in the list of members of the Air Council. It is noticeable that neither the Admiralty nor the Army Council are represented on the Air Council, so it will be appreciated that at long last we have what has been agitated for—a real Air Service entirely apart from the older righting services and in no sense the mere maid-of-all-work to either or both. That, it hardly needs saying, does not mean that the Air Force will not work whole-heartedly in unison with the Navy and Army. On the contrary, the new order of things will undoubtedly lead to much better co-ordination of effort, while it leaves those who are responsible for building up an unchallengable air supremacy free to work out that development, un- trammelled by the control of Boards and bodies to whom the Air Services are merely a side-issue of another and older service. We believe the outline of the composition of the new Air Council will meet the approval of the country as a whole, and particularly of that section of the public which has made the study of the Air Services and their development its own. There is an elasticity about it that spells success and efficiency, and is the more welcome because none can forecast with any degree of certainty the exact line of development which will be followed by the Air Service in the years to come. To have given the country an Air Council analogous to, say, the Board of Trade, would have been to defeat the whole object of the drastic altera- tion which has now been made in the composition and control of the Air Force—to give it its new and official name. It would have been simply deadly to have started the new venture on its career hide-bound by the methods of the older school of Government departments. Fortunately, a wide vision has been preserved, and we are presented with an Air Council • hich, in theory at any rate, leaves nothing to be desired from any single angle of view from which we regard it. In a word, it is difficult to see how the initial composition of the Council could be bettered. V 2
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