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Aviation History
1933
1933 - 0342.PDF
FLIGHT, AUGUST 17, 1933 position won by the Italian Royal Air Force under the inspiring leadership of Air-Marshal Balbo. Of course the cost of the flight has been high. A correspondent of one leading paper put it as high as two million pounds, to which he added another half-million or so spent by other nations in enter taining the Italian crews. The long delays waiting for tine weather added not a little to the last item. We cannot blame Marshal Balbo for taking no more than the unavoidable minimum of risks, for that minimum was in any case great enough, but the his tory of his flight showed that aeroplanes are not yet masters of the Atlantic, and must wait on the humours of that great ocean. The chances of a com mercial service by air between the continents of Europe and America are as remote as they were be fore Balbo started. In fact, their remoteness is probably more widely recognised now than it was a couple of months ago. We may recall, without tears, that not many years ago our Royal Air Force sent out a small formation of four " Southampton " flying boats, which made their way from Plymouth to Australia, all round that continent, and back to Singapore. The outstanding feature of that flight was that there were no accidents and that the machines always flew by schedule and always arrived punctually to time. They could not have crossed the Atlantic, but they were complete masters of the route on which they were sent, and it was a route of great importance to the British Empire. In those days we led the world in flying boat design, and we feel quite confident that in time we shall regain that position. In the meantime we offer our heart ' congratulations to our Italian friends on holding the lead for the time being. Balbo and his men are the finest of fine fellows. But we warn them, in all friendliness, that we do not mean to let them keep that particular lead for very long. • • * • Drastic reorganisation of the flying corps of France and Spain is now taking place, and in each scheme can be discerned the germ of a separate Air Force on the model of the Royal Air Forces of Great Britain and Italy. At the same time Foreign Germany has just instituted an Air Air Forces Ministry, with Capt. Goring as Air Minister. The French reorganisation appears likely to be very wide in character. The Army Flying Corps and the Naval Flying Corps are treated separately in the scheme. In France the Army is the more im portant Service of the two, and the military Flying Corps is likewise very much larger than the naval Flying Corps. The reorganisation of the former, though it is to be extensive, is planned to proceed on straightforward lines, with nothing revolutionary in principle about it. Briefly, France is to be divided into four air regions, with headquarters at Metz, Paris, Tours, and Lyons. There seems to be nothing corresponding to our Fighting Area, which is not territorial in character. It is in the reorganisation of the Naval Flying Corps that a revolutionary novelty is being intro duced. This corps is being divided into three branches, namely the Fleet Air Arm, the Naval Co operation units not afloat, and the Autonomous Naval Air Force. The first two branches are purely naval, and the Air Minister is responsible only for such matters as ab initio flying training, equipment, and the maintenance of shore bases, though even this duty is carried out by naval officers who form a special directorate at the Air Ministry. The Fleet Air Arm consists of all the aircraft which are carried on ships and a few training aircraft on shore. The second branch, Naval Co-operation units not afloat, includes all naval reconnaissance units based on the shore and a proportion of the torpedo bomber units. But, and this is significant, the Autonomous Naval Air Force is directly under the Air Minister. It is composed of all shore-based fighter units and the remainder of the torpedo bomber units. The per sonnel of this Force are at present seconded from the Navy, but the intention is to replace them eventu ally by Air Force personnel. This last provision seems to foreshadow the forma tion of a new separate French Air Force. At present there is no such service, and if a pilot is not a soldier then he must be a sailor. We wonder what the French Admiralty will think about this decision to introduce a separate element into the French Navy. We know that such an arrangement is far from popular in our own Navy, and Admiralty resentment on the subject has caused no small amount of trouble. The French Navy is not, like ours, the senior Service, though the Minister of Marine has just boasted that, apart from the battleships, the French warships are equal to, if not superior to, the ships of the United States, Great Britain, and Japan. The French Admiralty may not be able to make a very effective protest against this apparent invasion of a new Service into naval organisation. The French Army is much stronger, and for the present at any rate the air defence of France is likely to remain a branch of Army work. Unless this introduction of " Air Force personnel " into the sphere of naval defence is intended as a thin end of the wedge which will ultimately bring all flying units into a French Air Force on the British model, we cannot understand what advantage it is meant to confer on the fighting strength of France. To turn to Spain, we find that a Directorate General of Aviation has been established, and that an entirely separate Air Force is contemplated. It is to consist of (1) an Independent Air Force of bombers, (2) a Defence branch, presumably of fighters, which are to work in conjunction with the anti-aircraft units of the Army, (3) an Army Co operation branch, and (4) a' Naval Co-operation branch. This seems to be a fairly close copy of the British model, and we must congratulate the Spanish Republic on its ability to recognise and copy a goc example. It seems, however, that the Spaniards are copying the weak points as well as the strong points of our system. Apparently the ground anti-aircraft defence units of the Army are not yet in existence, but are to be created simultaneously and in conjunction wit the Defence branch of the Air Force. Here we ge divided control, which is a fruitful source of trouble. If, as appears to be the case, the Spanish slate i- clean at the present moment, surely it wouid much wiser for the anti-aircraft units to be foun e as a branch of the Air Force rather than as a branc of the Army. Such units are a branch of air deten • and air defence can only reach its highest pitcn efficiency if all its elements are under one COJ and are paid for out of a single purse. 818
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