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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 1204.PDF
having died of typhus. This in itself is an eloquent evidence of the terrible conditions under which the civil War in South Russia has been waged. The deadly typhus fever is caused mostly by starva-1- tion and overcrowding. It cannot exist save in the very worst sanitary conditions, and its appearance in an army is enough to indicate that it has reached the limits of endurance. What the conditions have really been we cannot imagine, and shall probably never know with certitude—possibly it were better we did not. We can do neither more nor less than salute with admiration the gallant men who have made so magnificent a fight against all that Bol- shevism means, and express what sympathy we may with their failure against all the odds. •y.~:..-•':••- ••---• • • • ' C Can airships be run like trolley-cars ? -w_: ¥ An . That seems to be the question pro- " "project pounded by the projector of a new airship service between Portsmouth and Ryde. The idea has been conceived by Mr. J. D. Roots, a well-known pioneer of the motor-car and an engineer of considerable attainments. He pro- poses to erect a cable-way between five and six miles long, from which small airships will pick up electric current for purposes of propulsion, altitude being maintained by ballasting and valving in the ordinary way. It is believed that the technical difficulties can be readily overcome, and that the cost of electric traction will be much lower than that of the more orthodox method of propulsion. As to that, we have a perfectly open mind, and are, naturally, much interested in the development of the scheme. Obviously, such a method of power transmission can only be used over very short distances—assuming that it is practical at all, of which we are not altogether convinced at the moment. In fact, we regard the scheme as a very interesting :;r3. one, with certain possibilities which may or may notI be realised, but which is nevertheless an experiment * which we shall be glad to see tried out. ;i - - Having regard to all the circumstances Army of the two Services, it has been decided ••ftJ'X? b^ the War Office and Air Ministr>TR.A.F6 jointly that a certain number of junior officers of the Army are to be seconded for service with the R.A.F. in order to obtain a full technical knowledge of the work and policy of the • aerial Service. A few officers have already been seconded, and their appointments to the R.A.F. are to be gazetted forthwith. In continuation of the policy laid down, the War Office is calling for volunteers for service with the Air Force, and from these will be selected thirty officers whose attachment will begin in March next. The officers selected will be between 22 and 28 years old, and will be seconded for four years. They must have at least two years' commissioned service, and be passed fit by the special Aviation Medical Board. It has been decided that these officers shall be given temporary commis- sions in the R.A.F., in which they will take rank and command accordingly, while they will receive the pay and allowances of their substantive rank in the Army or Air Force according to which is the more advantageous to themselves. Their service while seconded will count towards pension. The scheme is to be reciprocal, though the numbers of Air Force officers attached to the Army will not be as great. The R.A.F. being largely composed of NOVEMBER 25, 1920 officers who, up to a comparatively recent date, were trained in military duties, it will not be neces- sary to detach many at present, but a beginning is to be made next year, and the number will be raised as time goes on. On the face of it, the scheme seems to be a good one. It would obviously be disastrous to effective co-operation in War if the Army and the Air Force had no mutual knowledge of each other's methods, and policy. It must be a considerable time, however, before officers of junior rank can make their views effective in the Army, when they have returned from service with the Air Force. We are able to appraise with some amount of certainty the exact notice which is likely to be taken of the ideas of a subaltern officer by his seniors, and from this point of view we are a little inclined to wonder whether there is a " nigger on the fence " in a scheme which, at first sight, seems admirable. Speaking purely from the point of view of the layman, we should have said that the objects in view would have been better attained by the attachment of1 officers of field rank in order to give them an opportunity of the study of Air Force methods of administration and of air strategy in its relation to the other Services. We cannot forget in these connections that both Army and Air Force are still under the supreme direction of a dual Minister, nor that there has been persistent intrigue at the War Office to regain complete control of the aerial arm. We should be sorry to think that this new scheme is part of an insidious plan to insert the thin end of the wedge of Army control of the Air Force, but we cannot in all the circumstances completely divest ourselves of the suspicion that there is rather more in it than meets the eye. More particularly as there seems to be no idea of the Admiralty following out the same plan, although there would appear to be at least equal need for interchange between the Navy and the Air Force. Indeed, there is more, since the strategy of the sea war and the training for giving effect to it are far less understood by Air Force officers than the corresponding problems of land warfare. Further, the exact role to be plaved by the Air Service in co-operation with the Navy is also in all probability less appreciated by the Navy than similar co-operation with the Army is understood by the War Office. In a very short time most of the air traffic in and out of London will be Air"port dealt with at Waddon, and the Crickle- wood aerodrome will cease to be used as it is now. One reason is that the present arrange- ments mean the duplication of Customs and other staffs, while there is not enough aerial traffic to justify the keeping up of two big aerodromes. Further- more, practically the whole of the traffic comes in on the south side of London, and the Waddon aero- drome is very much better situated for dealing with " it. Of course, as traffic develops, particularly internal traffic, it will be necessary to lay down fresh aerodromes on the north side of the Metropolis^ in which case there is more than one good site available near Hendon. It is understood that in any case the Cricklewood site will not again be utilised for the purpose, though the constructional works and the . Handley Page Transport Co. remain unaffected for the present at least. The decision appears to be a wise one. There is, no sense in keeping on an aerodrome for which there 1206
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