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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0570.PDF
MARCH 5, 1936. FLIGHT. 245 The Outlooks A Army Aircraft 11 JOT the least welcome part of the new expansion of /Y the R.A.F., which has been announced by the Government, is the provision of two more squadrons for army co-operation work. At present there are five A-C. squadrons, Nos. 2, 4, 13, 16 and 26, one for each division of the Expeditionary Force of the Army. In war that would be a very scanty supply, and, moreover, in war there ought to be one squadron working under the headquarters of each Army Corps. For that there is at present no provision at all. How a squadron of twelve machines could carry out all the reconnaissance required bv an Army division, and also keep itself up to strength, is a question which belongs to the region of pious hopes rather than of probabilities. Four of these squadrons are stationed in the South, two at Old Sarum, one at South Farnborough, and one at Hawkinge. Up in Yorkshire No. 26 (A.C.) Squadron lives by itself, and does all the air work for the Northern Com mand (one regular division and two Territorial divisions), the North Midland Division, T.A., and the Scottish Com mand (about one Regular division and two T.A. divisions). The position is almost ridiculous, and consequently the raising of two more Army co-operation squadrons is a very welcome increase. A New Departure r HE one really novel feature of the expansion scheme is the proposal to raise four squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force to work with the Territorial Army. That should, for one thing, take quite a lot of burden off the shoulders of No. 26 (A.C.) Squadron. The novelty of the move lies in giving this sort of work to Auxiliary units. When first the A.A.F. was started all the squadrons were equipped with light bombers. Then the three Auxiliary squadrons in the London area were converted into two- Beater fighter squadrons. Now the A.A.F. is to have four army co-operation squadrons. Equally with the work of the Fleet Air Arm and of the flying-boat squadrons, the work of army co-operation re quires careful and intensive training of a specialist kind. The pilot of an A.C. machine has to fly as automatically as he walks. His whole attention has to be concentrated on his reconnaissance, and he can only reconnoitre satis factorily when he has been highly trained in the business. He has to go through a course at the School of Army Co operation at Old Sarum, during which he has to soak himself in Army tactics until he is almost qmdified to wear red tabs and a red band round his cap. It is an exacting course for a regular R.A.F. officer, and now Auxiliary A.F. officers will have to undertake it. If one ^n judge by the excellence of their work in other direc tions it is safe- to prophesy that they will do even this work very well. Industry and Defence fy'k verY important phase of the new defence scheme V-/ is that of industry in its relations with arms produc- to t! The Government's White Paper calls attention labo 6 neCd f°r wllolenearted co-operation by industry and the U andthe Prime Minister has more than once affirmed no ,erminati°n of the Government to see that there is gethe teenng" The two thin8s are not- Perhaps, ano ther* mco™Patible, but there is no use in denying that ™ere are difficulties. It is possible to argue that if a worker in an aircraft factory is enabled to make £4 per week where previously he could only earn £3, he is virtually profiting by abnormal conditions. Yet few would call that profiteering. The manufacturing firms, on the other hand, are subject to the very strictest supervision, and there is not even any certainty that they will make any profit at all. That may be difficult for some people to believe, but bankers are hard-headed business folk, and a story is being told which throws an interesting side light on the subject. A certain well-known aircraft firm, the story goes, had in hand orders to a value exceeding a million sterling. Being short of ready capital for the purchase of raw materials and so forth, the firm approached its bank with a view to arranging an overdraft of about a quarter of a million. In view of the large orders on hand, the local bank thought this could be arranged, but decided to submit the matter to the London head office. After scrutinising the Air Ministry orders, the London bank pointed out that no price per aircraft had been agreed upon, and that the constructor was not to be permitted to make a profit in excess of a certain relatively small maximum percentage. It pointed out that it might very well turn out that when the price per aircraft was actually agreed upon, the con tractor would find he had made a loss instead of a profit. In the circumstances the bank agreed to an overdraft of £50,000 instead of the quarter of a million which the con structor asked for. The story may or may not be true, but it does illustrate very well that being full up with orders does not. neces sarily mean prosperity. Belts or ATo ? T~\ ETURNING from Switzerland in a Swissair Douglas £~\ last week-end a member of the staff of Flight had an experience from which several morals might be drawn. The D.C.2 in which he was a passenger, taking off from Zurich Airport in a heavy snowstorm, came down again outside the aerodrome boundary, and eventually came to rest, in a considerably crumpled condition, among some trees. The exact cause is at present uncertain. The point which interested our colleague, however, was whether the jumbling-up of the passengers which resulted might not have been avoided had they been made to fasten the safety belts with which the seats were equipped. The desirability of providing safety belts in air liners admits of much discussion. Of their utility in preventing cuts and bruises and general panic resulting from passengers being thrown in a struggling mass in the forward part of the cabin in the event of a crash there is no doubt. But this advantage is possibly offset by the misgivings which their appearance would inevitably arouse in the minds of nervous or unpractised passengers. One can imagine the proverbial dear old lady, on finding safety belts in Heracles, wondering if Capt. Jones was liable to loop the loop over mid-Channel. Yet belts are found as a standard fitting on some Continental and many American air lines, where, in the latter case, they are a great help to passengers in the bumpy conditions sometimes experienced in certain districts. A bright spot in our colleague's experience at Zurich, incidentally, was the cool-headedness of the D.C.2's stewardess, Fraulein Heidi Oberholzer, well known at Croydon, who quickly sorted herself out from the struggling humanity, climbed up along the cabin and opened the door.
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