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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0167.PDF
plight, February 14, 1918. 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. 477. (No. 7, Vol. X.) FEBRUARY 14, 1918. fWeekly, Price 3d.L Post.Free, 4d. and The Aircraft Engineer. Editorial Office: 36, GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C. ». Telegrams : Truditur, Westcent, London. Telephone : Gerrard 1828. Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free. United Kingdom ... 15.?. 2d. Abroad 20s. od. CONTENTS. Editorial Comment : •- PAGE Allied Air Superiority .. .. .. .. .. .. •• •• i*3 Trade Union Methods and Production .. .. .. • • • • 164 Hun Propaganda from the Air .. .. .. .. .. -• ^4 The Curative Value of Colour.. .. .. .. .. •• -• 166 "A Post-War Aeroplane." By F. W. Halliwell 167 Accidents and their Causes.. .. .. .. •• .. •• •• 169 Dimensions of Steel Tube Struts. -By Carlo Maurilio Lsrici.. .. .. 170 Honours .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. •• 171 The Royal Aero Club. Official Notices 172 The Roll of Honour 172 Felt in Aircraft Construction. By S. W. Widney Aviation in Parliament Wings or Planes ? By B. Passat Answers to Correspondents i/<5 Airisms from the Four Winds .. . • Personals International Aircraft Standards The British Air Services Aircraft Work at the Front. Official Information SideWinds Company Matters 173 '74 175 "77 1S1 187 I9O NOTICE OF REMOVAL. The Offices—Editorial and Advertisement—of •• FLIGHT and The Aircraft Engineer " are now at 36, GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAV, W.C. 2. Telephone No.: Gerrard 1828. Teleg. Address : •• Truditur, Westcent, London." " Newspapers are an essential part of our war organisation."— (Sir Auckland Geddes, Minister of National Service.) of the most remarkable aspects of the present phase of the war in the W7est is the great successes of Allied airmen over those of the enemy. Not only in France and Flanders has this sequence of successes been recorded, but it has been the same on the Italian front, where the f's losses in aircraft have been, during the past far in excess of those of the Allies. There must be an explanation of this, but it is not altogether easy to arrive at. We know that individually, excepting in the few cases where the enemy's are concerned, the Allied airmen are A . A?® Superiority star turns distinctly superior in dash and skill to the Germans, so that given anything like equality of machines and numbers we should expect the balance to be on the side of the Allies. But the balance of success has recently swung so much to our side that it is clear there is some factor operating that has hitherto been absent. There are two possible explanations. The one is that at long last the construction programme of the Allied nations is beginning to tell its tale and we are in process of securing that definite superiority in numbers and resources at which we have been aiming ever since the start of the war. The other is that the enemy is exercising a strict economy of machines and is doing no more flying than circum- stances compel. At first sight this would appear to connote smaller relative losses than normal, whereas the tendency has been to increase them. But it must be remembered that if the Hun is in fact saving his machines for future use, the few that he does send over the lines have to rely on themselves to get out of trouble. The machine that is sent out on photographic reconnaissance, for example, cannot any longer depend upon a flight of fighting machines coming to the rescue if it has the bad luck to be over- hauled and engaged by British or French aircraft. The natural consequence is that the unlucky Hun machine becomes a comparatively easy victim and figures one in the list of losses without a corresponding balance to offset it. The question is, to which of the two causes noted is the present run of aerial success on the side of the Allies due ? We ourselves are strongly inclined to the opinion that it is to the second and that the enemy is in fact saving his machines for the vital work that lies before them prior to, and during, the great offensive for which we are waiting....» For, although there are no present signs of the threatened blow falling in the immediate future, there seems to be little doubt that the German Command has decided to put fortune to the test of a last desperate attempt to secure a favourable decision of the war in the West. Every- thing points that way. The great troop movements reported from Belgium ; the shifting of divisions from East to West ; and the appearance of Austrian batteries behind the enemy lines ; all these serve to indicate that before long there will be an end to the present state of calm along the front, which is really only the prelude to the greatest clash of arms, the world has ever seen. Moreover, we know that for every reason, military, political, and economic, u F 2
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