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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0181.PDF
FEBRUARY 14, 1918. RISMSmOMTffl NEXT week the House of Commons will probably have forconsideration a new feature in the parliamentary programme —the Air Estimates. •.,.. ; IT is the Aeronautical Supply Department of the Ministryof. Munitions which is taking over the big range of important buildings in Kingsway, and not the Air Council. The latterstill "rules from the Hotel Cecil. LAST year " FLIGHT " offices were moved to more com-modious premises in Great Queen Street, Kingsway, and a few months back we noted the opening in Long Acre—acontinuance, as it were, of Great Queen Street—of an important aircraft supply company, venturing the query asto whether this was but the forerunner of Long Acre having the vogue of aircraft constructors as yet another phase inits utility as a centre of progress, Motorism having in its day monopolised this very convenient thoroughfare. Itlooks more than ever as if there may be a set in this direction now that the M.O.M. Aeronautical Supply Depart-ment has become a close neighbour of "FLIGHT" by itsselection for its home of this huge block of buildings from Kemble Street up to Great Queen Street. TOUCHING the supply of material for aircraft construction,it would appear to be quaint that whilst on the one hand all efforts are urged to increase flax, particularly having regardto the needs of aeroplanes, our Foreign Office should see fit to more than neutralise these efforts by letting this vitalproduct with other valuable commodities pass away from this country. That is the indictment set out by Mr. Ernest S.Brown, of 51, Milton Street, E.C., in a letter to the Press, in which he quotes the following figures :— NORWEGIAN IMPORTS FROM BRITAIN.Pre-war. 1916. Linen, 235,000 yards. 1,650,000 yards. BOARD OF TRADE RETURNS.Oct., 1915. Oct., 1917. Thread for sewing, 1,582,000 lbs. 1,786,900 lbs.i Increase, 204,000 lbs. Mr. Brown adds that at a meeting held in Belfast onJanuary 31st, 1918, to encourage the growth of flax in Ireland, the chairman stated that " they were so short of flax that thetrade was faced with disaster, and it would be nothing short of a calamity to the Empire if they could not maintain thesupply of aeroplane cloth and the other necessary supplies made from linen which the Government required." THERE may be just a glimmer of hope in the fact that thedate for the linen export is 1916 ; th$ figures for 1917 should be interesting. >. •• a* IN speaking at Huddersfield on Saturday, Major Baird,Parliamentary Secretary to the Air Council, said there was an immense future for the commercial development of air-, craft, and he predicted voyages to Canada by air. SOME smoke ! German smokers have just been informedthat, in accordance with the decree of the Finance Minister, any mixture will still be regarded as tobacco in which theproportion of tobacco forms more than 5 per cent, of the total weight. ADMIRAL LORD JELLICOE was cheering last week in hisremarks upon the doom of the submarines, but whilst appre- ciating the many and stupendous difficulties which have tobe overcome in countering these sea-vermin, we cannot help thinking that there could be some means evolved of closingone of the channels by which the U-boats are able to dodgf our hunting craft. The submarine, said Lord Jellicoe,sank a ship, and we got our craft on to her. That was the first intimation we had of the enemy's presence. We huntedit down, and it stayed at the bottom until the troubles were over, when aircraft which had hunted her had to go back toport to refuel. The turn of the submarine came again, and it continued on the pirate's career. That was one of themain difficulties in that locality. She might stop there for 48 hours, or she might came up again in some other portionof the Irish Sea. ASSUMING that our aircraft are able to follow the sub.'smovements, surely with wireless and what not there should be no inherent difficulties in organising relays of air spottersto take up the work in good time, before the petering out of the fuel of the first patrol. FOLLOWING the recent Hun air-raid on Paris, quite a rushof French insurance business resulted to the London market, shopkeepers especially favouring our British methods. Thiswithout doubt is due to there being no insurance scheme in operation by the French Government similar to our nationalair-raid damage insurance policies, which resulted from " FLIGHT'S " persistence, starting away back in September,1914. Apropos the outrage by the Huns upon our two flyingofficers whom they have seen fit to condemn as criminals for distributing under orders some pamphlets setting out a fewhome truths for the German people's consumption, but of an unpalatable nature to the Hohenzollern brood, thismethod of propaganda was even with this war no innovation to the Hun rulers. We are reminded, by the turning over theleaves of an old album, of these methods employed in the Franco-Prussian war at the Siege of Paris in 1870, when theGermans by means of balloons dropped leaflets into the beleaguered city calling upon the starving inhabitants toagitate against the authorities in persisting to maintain a useless resistance. THIS reminder was but a side-thought of a vivid remem-brance of the balloon post from Paris and pigeon-post into Paris during the days of this memorable siege. Before usnow lies a letter received by balloon-post from a relative, then confined within the German cordon encircling Paris,and on the same album page are a couple of photographic reminders of the same period and methods of communicationwith the outside world. The one, a pigeon's " letter," which is reprinted on this page, is a photographic reproduction of the front page of the Times of January 19th, 1871, conveyedinto Paris in this form, attached to the " homing " pigeon. The minute photographs of the pages of the Times were theremagnified by means of a magic lantern, and transcribed by clerks for the information of those it concerned, and thus thenews of the day from the outside world was communicated to the besieged. THE return in kind was the despatching, at propitious,times, of balloons conveying letters, newspapers and photo- 177
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