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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1471.PDF
4^2 ^m MAY 18, 1939 A Message to "Flight" Readers from Captain Harold Balfour, M.C., M.P., Under-Secretary of State for Air THIS special issue of Flight comes at an appropriate time, as it is within a few days of the completion of the fourth year of the expansion of the Royal Air Force. Its articles and photographs effectively reveal the manner in which our extensive programme is being executed. There is, of course, much important information which for Service reasons cannot be disclosed, but enough is available to give some idea of the magnitude of the effort which is being made by the Royal Air Force and by the Industry on which it must depend for its aircraft, engines and equipment. The public will have an excellent opportunity on Empire Air Day to see for themselves many of the various phases of training in the Royal Air Force. I feel sure that they will be impressed both by the quality of the flying and of the aircraft with which the Air Force is now equipped. I know from my own visits to Royal Air Force stations that, although the numbers of personnel have nearly quadrupled since 1935, their quality is as high as ever, and I believe it is unrivalled by any Air Force in the world. Special arrangements have been made at all Royal Air Force stations to provide visitors with an opportunity of gathering information about the various branches of the Royal Air Force and its Auxiliary and Reserve services in which National Service can be undertaken. At the present time our chief needs are for Air Observers, Wireless Operators/Air Gunners, and various skilled and semi-skilled men for the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve. But there is also a special opportunity for ex-airmen who served with the R.F.C., R.N.A.S., and R.A.F. This is known as Class E Reserve, and the Officer-in-Charge, Record Office, Ruislip, will be glad to receive the names and present addresses of ex-airmen of all trades and ranks. On Empire Air Day the public will be the guests of the Royal Air Force ; but except on special occasions it is on journals like /n/1 // *% ^/^fcX^t Flight that they must chiefly depend for their knowledge of /// /fit the progress and development of the Royal Air Force. I /// //U.& therefore particularly welcome the initiative of the editorial staff hi producing this excellent number. Organising the F.A.A. fjOME time ago it was remarked in these columns that ^^ while the Navy in general and the Fleet Air Arm • in particular were simultaneously expanding, it would not be possible for many ratings, and particularly skilled artificers, to be spared for the Fleet Air Arm. Actually most of the highly skilled maintenance men are being provided by transfers from the Royal Air Force. But the Admiralty have decided upon a new organisation. A new Flying Branch of the Navy is being instituted, and will be administered by the Rear Admiral, Naval Air Stations, at Lee-on-Solent, the headquarters of the new Fleet Air Arm Division. All training, drafting, and advancement of the personnel will be centralised, and ratings of the new branch will belong to the Fleet Air Arm Division instead of being attached to one of the three Home Ports. The flying branch will in future largely recruit its men direct from the shore. Men will be enlisted under the title of Naval Airmen. Of course, the majority of the pilots and observers in the Fleet Air Arm are still ordinary Naval or Marine officers, as they have always been since the Balfour Com mittee. The tendency, however, seems to be to separate the personnel of the Fleet Air Arm more and more from the personnel which manages the ships. It really begins to look as if the F.A.A. will in future become a partially separate Service analagous to the Royal Marines. The Pigeons Return I N this mechanical age, when the internal combustion engine has all but driven the horse out of the Arm)7, and when pilots rely on instruments instead of their eyes to find their way through the air, it is strange to see the carrier pigeon coming back into the R.A.F. scheme of things as a means of communication. In the Great War the seaplanes of the R.N.A.S. usually carried pigeons which were released when a machine was forced down and could not send wireless tidings of its plight and its whereabouts. On several occasions these pigeons were the means of directing the rescuers to the foundered craft and so saving the lives of the crew. On a good many other occasions the birds failed to reach the shore, and gave their own lives in the attempt to save the lives of the airmen. Recently we had come to look on those stories as examples of the primitive methods which they used to employ twenty one years ago. Yet the Air Ministry is once more orga nising a National Pigeon Service, stating frankly that carrying pigeons is an additional safety measure for reconnaissance aircraft when wireless communications break down, and of special value in the event of an aircraft making a forced landing on the sea. Evidently the triumph of science over Nature is not yet absolute DIARY OF FORTHCOMING EVENTS—Page 504/•
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