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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0534.PDF
while the civilian staff, who were all serving on temporary engagements, have been given notice or are to receive notice terminating their services. It is to be hoped that the economy axe is not being wielded too vigorously, and that the officers who have made airships their especial study during and since the War, and who have been retained up to now in the airship service, will not be allowed to drift into other occupations so that, if it is decided to open up Imperial airship routes, they will not be available for the work. This is really a rather serious matter. According to Mr. Churchill, these officers are to be " absorbed " within the Royal Air Force, but the question arises of whether or not they will desire absorption. Specialists in airship work, whether as pilots or otherwise, they will undoubtedly be at a serious disadvantage when drafted to aeroplane stations, and, whatever their rank or experience, will virtually have to start at the beginning again. Coming from a branch of the Service which has ceased to exist, the chances will be all against them in the matter of promotion, and we can very well see that the best of them may prefer to leave the Service altogether rather than face a future so indeterminate. How long will it take the Dominion Governments to make up their minds in the matter ? Not more than three months, surely. Considering the importance of the issues involved, we should say it was probably the truest economy to keep the existing staff together, pending decision, and not to be in too much of a hurry to " absorb " them. /rT :-;, •,,«;.'; • •'<•••" '' . During the Committee stage of the NavalAir?1"s?*t Estimates some very interesting state- and the , , J ,. r\ Navy ments were made regarding the co- operation between the Royal Air Force and the Navy. Some of them are likely to cause very serious thought and some amount of consterna- tion to those who, pinning their faith to the principle of a separate and distinct Air Service, had thought that the basis of co-operation with the two older Services had been properly worked out and was being carried on with the requisite smoothness and efficiency. Rear-Admiral Sueter, who was Director of the Air Department at the Admiralty during the early part of the War, was exceedingly caustic regarding the alleged shortcomings of Air Force units operating with the Navy. He said that Mr. Churchill has had a great deal to do with the Royal Air Force, but that he has turned it into an Air Military Force, which is being developed exactly like a Guards regiment, but that it is of very little use to the Navy. He went on to say that in some combined manoeuvres the other day the airmen carrying out the operations with the Fleet could not place the battleships, and when they signalled the position of a submarine and it was put on the chart, it was not in the sea at all, but at Dorchester. That, said the gallant Admiral, is not what is wanted in the Navy. We must train our naval airmen to work with the Navy—the air s navy and the water navy must work together. Coming from such a source as Admiral Sueter, " these criticisms and allegations of inefficiency—for they are no less—are exceedingly serious. They could not be more so. Had the critic been anyone else we might have thought that he was identified with the school of thought which is all in favour df going back to what we still believe to be the bad old principle of two separate Services, which was AbGUST II, 1921 tried and found wanting during the War. But we have every confidence that if Admiral Sueter was in favour of reverting to the old condition he would have said so. He would not merely have contented himself with putting the matter with such comparative mildness, and would have gone much farther than merely saying that we must train our naval airmen to work with the Navy. If such things as we have recorded do happen—and the instance given is specific enough—it stands to reason that there are very serious faults in the training of the personnel allotted to the Navy, and it will be well if the matter of who or what system is responsible is probed to the bottom. What is the system ? We know that Naval aircraft are under the Naval commander-in-chief for command purposes, but are not at all clear whether the Navy interests itself in the training of the flying officers who work with the Fleet. Is the Air Ministry responsible for seeing that units detailed for Fleet work are properly trained for it, or are they simply put through the ordinary courses of what Admiral Sueter would probably call the Guards' routine of the R.A.F., leaving the rest to luck and the Navy ? There is a screw loose somewhere that such things can happen, and we hope Admiral Sueter will, on a suitable occasion, secure a statement from the Air Minister as to the course followed. •.-., OTi;.v > .: • TheUpper Air The first meeting of the InternationalCommission for the Exploration of the Upper Air was held at Bergen during the last week of July. This Commission is to carry on the work of the international committee appointed at Petrograd in 1896, and which was interrupted by the outbreak of the War. In the interval it had accomplished a good deal of very useful work. The methods adopted consisted of sending up kites and balloons carrying self-recording barometers and thermometers, and particularly of free unmanned sounding balloons which explored the atmosphere up to heights of 15 miles or more. Some important discoveries were made as a conse- quence. One. was that the earth's atmosphere is divided into two distinct parts, the troposphere which extends from the ground up to six or seven miles, and the stratosphere which lies above it. In the former, temperature falls with height; in the latter it appears to remain constant at any one time or place. Quite the most interesting theory advanced during the Bergen conference was that of the " Polar front," by Professor Bjerknes. This theory supposes that a mass of cold air exists over the Poles. In a wavering line around the temperate zones this cold air meets the warm air from the equatorial regions, and all along the line of contact the warm air rises over the cold, with a resultant series of waves, in connection with which what are known to meteorologists as " depressions " arise. In a word, the " cyclone " and the anti-cyclone are caused by the battle between the two opposing masses of cold and warm air. The author of the theory urges the establish- ment of a closely set chain of observation stations right round the earth in what he calls the " zone of struggle." The Commission actually formu- lated a scheme, which is to be referred to the Inter- national Meteorological Committee when it meets in London next month. A very few years ago this most interesting theory 534
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