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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2235.PDF
AUGUST 8, 1940 107 AIR BLOCKADE (CONTINUED soldiers whether they fight in khaki, light blue or navy blue. And the curse of the matter is that the men who know the commercial side of the enemy's power, his purse, his larder, his factories, his workers, his psychology, his revolutionary tendencies are right down at the bottom of the picture where the humble artist usually signs his name. We have our Ministry of Economic Warfare, and all the rest of the standard systems of old brought up to date. But what power have they got over the actual operations of the fighting Services? Can they demand that certain targets must be attacked? Can they demand that if for technical reasons such targets can- not be attacked an immediate inquiry should be held into the reasons why the target is out of range, tem- porarily, and for how long? Can they demand that the Service concerned must lay down the specifications and expedite the building of the requisite types of air- craft to enable the Ministry of Economic Warfare to wage economic war by the employment of aircraft for land blockade? Or is the Ministry of Economic War- fare a withholding device which employs only the power of sea blockade? If it has power to employ the latter method only it is not enough. The whole policy of Britain's blockade of Germany should be a co-ordinated policy. It should embrace the power which sea supremacy offers of preventing supplies from reaching the enemy by sea. But at the same time it should have the power to request that stores which have reached the enemy by other routes shall be destroyed by air action ; it should have the power to state which are the main targets that r.:ust be attacked in enemy territory to prosecute the economic war by the dual means of strangulation and destruction. How much authority has the economic war department got over the employment of the air force? What co- ordination exists between the employment of the Navy and the R.A.F. in regard to a combined blockade? And to what extent does the financial method of strangula- tion of enemy supplies dovetail into the sea and air operations ? All soldiers (generic term) tend to attack their kind, or to destroy the main sources of power which may be used against them. That is natural. But in concen- trating effort in that way, the opportunity of taking action against the vital sources of power of a modern nation may be lost. And so, to-day, with the major part of our resources concentrated in Great Britain, we need not wait until 1942 to take the offensive. With a fully co-ordinated campaign of sea, air and financial blockade we ought to be able to drive German industry eastwards and by adopting clever tactics make it concentrate in what are at the moment safe areas, only to receive the full blast of the power of the longer range aircraft which must be produced to enable the weapon of air blockade to be applied to its full extent. VISIBLE VORTICES Numerous Readers Record their Observations T)ERHAPS you would be interested in a new type of smoke -L trail. My breakfast on July 22nd was rudely and unmannerly interrupted by a bomb explosion, followed by gunfire. On going outside, I could see shrapnel smoke of a greyish-black colour instead of the usual white. A little later, at about 20,000 feet, and just under the cloud banks, as the bursts came near a long smoke trail of the same colour as the shrapnel smoke streamed back, fanwise, from each engine. It stopped, then restarted again, and the machine disappeared into the clouds. This was observed in detail by my uncle, who had field glasses. We concluded that it was a ruse to make the gunners think that the aeroplane was on fire. I have seen white smoke trails from a Hurricane zooming at 2,000 feet, but this was of different shade and shape. Fareham. A. MCKEE. I WAS extremely interested in your article on "Visible Vor-tices" in Flight of July 18th. Like other readers, I, too, have been fortunate in observing these plumes of white cloud which occasionally appear when aircraft are flying high. About three weeks ago I saw an air-battle taking place over the coast following a raid on a south-coast town. There were several enemy bombers in formation which were obviously being attacked by our fighters. They were flying at a great height, probably 15,000 feet or more, and the bombers, which could just be seen, were leaving a straight trail of white cloud behind them. On the other hand, the fighters, which were haidly visible, could only be detected by the presence of these "trailers" which passed underneath and round the enemy planes as if dive attacks- were being made. This seems to rule out the possibility that the cloud is " specially manufac- tured," since it was observed behind both our own and enemy planesat the same time. Again, recenth' I was walking in the country and stopped to watch three Blenheim long-nose fighters chasing each other about the sky and performing some very tight turns. One of them passed immediately overhead at not more than 3,000 feet, probably less, and, at the point where it made an ex- tremely tight turn, these white plumes appeared at the wing- tips but ceased as soon as the plane straightened out. Unlike the previous occasion when the aircraft were flying high, the streamers condensed and disappeared immediately. On both of these occasions the weather was almost perfect with practically no wind and very little cloud. Up to the present 1 have been uncertain as to whether the cloud formation was caused by the airscrew or the wing-tips, but in my second experience I was quite certain that it came from the latter. Chichester. MURRAY SMITH. THE article in Flight of July 18th and the correspondencein your issue of July 25th prompts me to encroach on your space to suggest the following causes for the formation of the cloud trails created by aircraft flying at a considerable height under certain atmospheric conditions. I have noticed these trails in the making on three or four occasions since the outbreak of war and assume that the reason for their not being observed prior to September, 1939, was due to the extreme rarity of flights at 25,000 feet and over. 1 believe the explanation is related to the phenomenon of aircraft icing in that it is due to the freezing of very minute particles of supercooled moisture. By a combination of certain meteorological conditions, an invisible strata of this super- cooled moisture or water vapour may be present at an altitude where the temperature is not only very considerably below the dew-point but also below freezing; owing to the effect of.sur- face tension and probably the entire absence of any nuclei on which to condense, together with the fact that the water vapour has remained completely undisturbed, it neither con- denses nor freezes. The passage of an aeroplane through this strata creates con- siderable disturbance both in the form of turbulence and sound waves, whilst the engine exhausts provide innumerable par- ticles of water to serve as condensation nuclei. The super- saturated and supercooled water vapour immediately starts to condense and thereupon freezes in the shape of countless ice crystals, exactly corresponding to a Cirrus cloud. The visible
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