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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1628.PDF
water—the destroyers swifter than eagles (175 miles an hour guaranteed), the equivalent battle-cruiser with peculiar armour (but that's another story), and the lethargic bomb- carriers. " As usual, the experts will say I am mad. " N.B.—The Royal Society said the man was mad who predicted aeroplanes." This is Lord Fisher's last shot at the end of his letter. THANK goodness the Realm of the Air has so far-seeing and powerful a champion as Admiral Fisher, second only to Sir Percy Scott. Both carry much weight with the people (and, after all, it is they who have to pay)—and they are so per sistent, that there is hope for our Air policy before it is too late. A very good start has been made with General Sir Hugh Trenchard's scheme for the organisation of the R.A.F., and there is abundant matter for reflection and congratulation in the debate which has this week taken place in Parliament. In the meantime, Sir Percy Scott does not spare the Admiralty in his criticism of their obsolete methods, when advocating more generous consideration for aircraft. In his most recent utterance he lays down that " it has no appreciation of the value of time, it has always been opposed to change and reform, it is hidebound with routine and red-tapeism, and has no time to think of the heeds of the future and how they should be met. "I will quote a small example," he writes. "When I was in charge of the Defence of London I wanted some guHs; I knew that Lord Kitchener had some that he could spare ; so I went over to the War Office and asked him for some ; he said that he thought I could have them, but would let me know for certain in half an hour. In a quarter of an hour he telephoned to me that I could have them. I thought that it would be only polite if the Admiralty thanked him, so I sent a chit down to the Secretary submitting that such a course might be taken. In a commercial house the secretary would have called in a shorthand writer and dictated to him : ' I am commanded by their Lordships the Com missioners of the Admiralty, to thank, etc.,' he would have signed it, and Lord Kitchener would have received it in an hour. How did the Secretary deal with it ? He dealt with it according to the Admiralty custom. My request was put in a docket and passed round to all the Lords of the Admiralty and most of the heads of Departments for their opinions ; it was marked ' Immediate,' so it only took six days. Here was waste of time and labour, and we were at war. As this is a fair sample of how business is done at the Admiralty, no wonder Mr. Walter Long found the staff tired." " As regards the future policy of the Navy," Sir Percy continues, " Mr. Walter Long practically tells us that they have not got one, but that they are thinking about it. This will be poor consolation to parents who are trying to make up their minds whether they should put their sons into the Navy or not." Coming to Sir Percy Scott's next point, we are afraid we disagree with his views upon this particular detail entirely. He rightly thinks there must be great changes in the future Navy, and he follows this up by saying : "In my opinion its most important arm of offence and defence, the aeroplane, has been taken from it; we are going back to the customs of 100 years ago, when we had our ships worked by sailors, but the guns manned by artillerymen from the shore. Now we shall have our aeroplane-carrying ships worked by sailors, but the 'planes they carry will be fought by members of the Royal Air Service ; a scheme which I do not think will ever work satisfactorily." WE may be wrong, but we shall be in company in that respect with a very big section of hard-thinking men of the new school. All this jibbing at the basis of," a successful Air Service is merely the result of, in a measure, being bitten with the very " hide-bound routine and red-tripeism " which Sir Percy so thoroughly despises and condemns. Time will tell, and as the Air Ministry as a separate entity is once more and we hope finally disposed of, we propheW that in a very few years it will be wondered at how any serious opposition could have been put up against the R.A'.F., as it is now conceived. CARRYING his arguments for aircraft development a step further, Sir Percy points out that Mr. Walter Long tells us that there are two sides to the question as to the surface battleship being dead, in part because of attack from the air. One side, says Mr. Long,, is that aircraft will destroy" the big battleships by dropping bombs on them ; the other that they will not be able to do this, as they will be counter attacked ; but, Sir Percy claimfe,Uhere is a third side to the question—aircraft will destroy the battleships by torpedoes. " This is an arm that could have been, and ought to have been,,,; DECEMBER 18, 191& developed during the War, but the Admiralty had no apprecia tion of the value of it, and it was not perfected until the War was over. The introduction of dropping mobile torpedoes from aeroplanes has made the existence of the battleship still more precarious. If we or the Germans had at the battle of Jutland 40 aeroplanes, carrying torpedoes, one of the two fleets would never have reached home ; the low visibility which obtained during that battle would have been all in favour of the aeroplanes ; they could have come quite low down and made sure of their targets ; they would, of course, have been accompanied by fast fighting machines to ward off counter-attacks. "Mr. Walter Long only mentioned bombs. The use of mobile torpedoes introduces a question which will require very careful consideration before we even think of building another surface battleship." THESE discussions cannot help but do good to the cause. By spreading the light, in time the most moleish person cannot help but see where rigid adherence to red-tape tradition must ultimately land us. IT'S Christmas now when d'Annunzio hopes to be getting away for his Rome-Tokio flight. And this time, by latest reports upon Fiume, it really looks as if he had prophesied correctly. IN spite of all the egg-dropping on the Mahsuds, this pugnacious tribe has managed to carry on, after all, as the peace which they apparently sought for as a result of the first operations appears to have faded away somewhat. At the same time, it is early days yet to condemn bombing methods as useless, as the inner history of the effects has still to be written, and by latest news to hand, it would seem as if these warlike tribes are much inclined to call a halt, and it may well be that those bombs from the air have been a consideration in their minds. Notts verrons. QUITE an amusing, if exciting, episode is reported from Berlin by Mr. George Renwick, the special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, in connection with the first aeroplane to fly from London to Berlin. Mr. Renwick, writing under date December 13, says :— " Two British ex-Army officers, Capt. Heme and Capt. Macnaught Davis, are probably the first two fliers who have had an encounter with German frontier officers in the air (always excepting the numerous encounters with German frontier guards which our fliers had, during the War, when they made a daily practice of invading the enemy's welkin). " Messrs. Heme and Davis left London some little time ago on a Handley Page machine in order to take it to Warsaw,» there to give exhibition flights. " Five hours took them to Cologne, where they were held up for some time by bad weather. " But the weather was not the only dilemma which faced them in the zone of Cologne. " They applied to the German Pass Bureau in the Rhine zone for permits to travel over Germany, and in reply they were informed that:— 1. Passes would be given them ; but 2. The Bureau had no authority to grant a permit for the entry of the aeroplane into the country. Nevertheless, the two airmen decided to ' chance it,' and they left Cologne a few mornings ago for Berlin. " They ran at once into more bad weather, and when not very far beyond the bridgehead (which extends about 20 miles east of Cologne) two single-seater German aeroplanes approached them. " From the single-seater flew forth the signal to the English men, ' Alight !' ' Descend !' " TAKING up the episode at this point, Captain Heme, who has been interviewed by a correspondent; said :— " I suddenly saw two German machines in full war paint, Iron crosses and all, making for us. They flew close alongside, the airmen motioning to us with their hands to land. We did not want any explanations except with the proper authorities in Berlin, so we flew on, waving our hand in a friendly way. " When the Germans saw that we were not coming down, they were furious, and flew round us for twenty minutes, crossing so close as almost to graze us with their wing tips and shaking their fists at us angrily. " At Spandau the Germans were simply amazed to find ' that we were a British civilian machine, and had never seen our international markings before, but they treated us very well, gave-us hot drinks, and drove us to Berlin." ALL'S well that ends well, and af^er a while, the necessary 1 passes having been furnished to the voyagers, they were able to'resume their journey, expecting to reach Warsaw in about five hours. \ir\
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