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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1062.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD ; FOUNDED wog 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.1 Telegrams : Truditar, Sedijt, 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 (5 lines). 260, DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Ilifle, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars' 4412. SUBSCRIPTION RATES : 26B, RENFIELD ST., GLASGOW, 0.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow Telephone: Central 4857.' 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. 0d. No 1581. Vol. XXXV. APRIL 13, 1939. Thursdays, Price The Outlook The Danger of Silence a U NDER the above heading M. Georges Houard, Editor-in-Chief of our excellent French contem porary Les Ailes, expounds the folly of the latest French decree, under which French journals, technical and otherwise, are prevented from making any mention of French military aircraft material and its employment. Are the State, our technicians, our designers, greatly advanced," he asks, " because they have been told that Heinkel has built a monoplane which does 746 km/hr. ; that the latest Italian bomber has a span of 28.75 m., a length of 16.43 m., and that it climbs to 5,000 m. in 6 minutes 1%% seconds? " M. Houard goes on to complain that, while such modern French aeroplanes as the Morane-Saulnier 405, the Potez 63, and the Breguet 690 have been sold abroad, and others have been tested at Villacoublay by foreign pilots, the French Press is now prevented from making any reference to them. The result is that from now on French aviation journals will publish nothing but foreign military aviation news and descriptions. After a while the world will draw the conclusion that there is no French technique, no French progress, no French aviation, and that all that is good is done abroad. That is a pretty grim picture, but it is a true one. And the story does not end there. While the French Press has been thus effectively muzzled, the Office Frangais d'Exportation du Materiel Aeronautique is per mitted to continue to offer French military aircraft to those countries which can, and will, buy them, and to send out full details of their performance and charac teristics. How fortunate, by comparison, we are in having a free Press in Great Britain. We are permitted to publish details of British military aeroplanes. Not too hurriedly, of course; but about a year after specimens have been sold to foreign countries, and when aviation " missions" from almost every country under the sun have, with the permission of, and indeed often at the request of, the Air Ministry, seen the machines manufactured and flown. When everyone in the world has already found out all about them, then British aviation journals are permitted to publish descriptions! Working in with Australia N OT long ago Air Commodore (now Acting Air Vice-Marshal) Goble, of the Royal Australian Air Force, was commanding one of the bomber groups of the R.A.F., and now Air Vice-Marshal Williams, the senior officer of the R.A.A.F., is over here doing duty in the Home Air Force so as to be able to co-ordinate methods of working when he returns to his own country. Naturally, he is starting with a period at the Air Ministry under the eyes af Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff, and soon, it is announced, he will join the staff, of the Coastal Command. There seems deliberate purpose in this, for coastal defence and reconnaissance must be a prime duty of the Australian Air Force in war. Attack could only come from Japan, and the numerous islands which lie to the north and north-east of the Australian continent would need careful and systematic watching from the air for commerce raiders or more ambitious naval concen trations. It would be of the utmost importance that the Aus tralian Air Staff should be well versed in all the arts of coastal reconnaissance and of striking from the air. The Coastal Command in this country has been practising these operations in exercises and manoeuvres for years past, and, so far as it is possible to learn the arts of war in time of peace, the Chief of the Australian Air Staff should return to his country thoroughly experienced in this respect. Doubtless he will also study other branches of R.A.F. work before he returns, but prob ably few of them will be so important to him as this experience with the Coastal Command.
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