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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 0183.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD •• FOUNDED /POP Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (50 lines). 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971. 260, DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. 26B, RENMELD ST., GLABGOW, C.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow Telephone: Central 4857.' SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Home and Canada: Other Countries: Year, Year, £1 13 0. £1 16 0. 6 months, 16s. 6d. 6 months, 18s. Od. 3 months, 8s. 6d. 3 months, 9s. Od. No. 1570. Vol. XXXV. JANUARY 26, 1939. Thursdays, Price The Outlooks The Observer Gets His Chance T O hold out a prospect that an observer officer may come to command a squadron of the Fleet Air Arm is a novelty in the history of British military aeronautics. In the Great War the observers in the R.F.C. were a very gallant body of men, most of whom wanted to become pilots. In marine flying the observer has always been more important than was his land confrere, and now the Admiralty is giving the ob server a chance which he deserves but has never had before. Among the short-service officers in the new " A " branch of the Fleet Air Arm, observers and pilots are on the same footing. Once the transfer from Air Ministry to Admiralty control has been completed, and R.A.F. officers no longer work on the carriers, the naval pilots and observers will have equal chances of rising to the tactical command of a flight or sub-flight, and later on to administrative command of a squadron. Fleet Air Arm observers are a unique set of men. There is nothing exactly like them to be found anywhere outside the Navy, for they have more responsibilities than are laid on civil air navigators. The lives of the aircraft's crew, and sometimes of a whole formation, depend on the ability of the observer to find his way back to his carrier or other starting point across the featureless sea. There are no rivers or railway lines to help him to identify his position. But navigation is only the beginning of the observer's work. He must thoroughly understand the business of naval recon naissance, and be able to interpret what he sees, so that he may send the Admiral useful information. He must be able to spot for the guns ; he must be able to use his wireless set and his machine gun. He must, when on reconnaissance, practically control the operations of his aircraft. When grave decisions have to be taken, such as whether to fly on in search of important information *hen petrol is running low or to make for home while the going is good, that responsibility lies on the senior officer in the aircraft, who, in a large number of cases, will be the observer. In fact, the notion that the ob server is a lower race of man than the pilot no longer obtains in the Fleet Air Arm. Both are on the same footing. Good Brains Needed T HERE will always be more pilots than observers in the P'.A.A., partly because the former must loom larger in the fleet fighter squadrons, but that means no inferiority in the status ot the observer. The work of the latter is intensely interesting and ab sorbing. It calls for brains, but any man of good intelligence can master it. The course of training, first in naval subjects and afterwards in fleet air work, lasts about a year, but it is after the training is over and the officer goes to sea that he amasses experience and becomes of real use to the Navy. It is, perhaps, natural that the fascination of piloting should have led to a certain shortage in applications for observer officers in the "A" branch; but when the facts mentioned above are more widely known there will surely be many young men who will see that seven years as observer with a chance of an extension and of a command offers a career which is very well worth while. Practice for the Observer Corps A CORRESPONDENT, who is a Head Special in charge of an Observer post in one of the southern counties, writes to us that he read with envy in our last issue how some pilots of No. 90 (Bomber) Squadron will fly at week-ends to give practice to posts of the Observer Corps. He says that his post has not had.a real practice with aircraft since September 13 last, and that it is hard to keep up the interest of members of the post with only imaginary aircraft. His men are mostly working men who are only able to practise in
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