FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1374.PDF
2 FLIGHT JULY 2ND, 1942 superiority means no more than it says. In that state of affairs the enemy is able to put up some resistance, and at times to concentrate and gain a temporary and local command of the air at some important point. We have not held air supremacy in Libya since the Lufkmffe began to appear on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Air superiority we still retain. By the same token, it can now be stated that the fall of Bir Hakeim was not due to the German Stukas, for the Free French lost very few men from air attack. It was the enemy's artillery which made the place un tenable, just as it was German guns rather than German bombers which did most of the damage in Warsaw. When artillery can be brought to bear, it is practically always more effective than air bombardment. What the Eighth Army needed and still needs is more armour and more big guns. At the same time it is hard to avoid the conclusion that its air arm might have been equipped to give it more direct help in the land battles if the matter had been planned and provided for in time. The Army Glides /4 T long last the authorities have lifted a small corner /"A °f the veil with which it has been deemed wise to surround everything connected with glider-borne Army troops. The glimpse obtained is not very rev rul ing after all, for it merely discloses the fact, which might have been surmised in any case, that the British Army is interested in the problem of troop transport by gliders, and that pilots to fly those gliders are being trained. What is less obvious is the reason for training the Army glider pilots on light planes. One would have thought that this was teaching men to run before they could walk, but evidently there have been reasons, and weighty reasons, against doing ab initio training on gliders. One may have been the absence of suitable gliders in sufficient numbers, since the Government banned all gliding at the outbreak of war, and the glid ing clubs had to be closed down for the time being. But for this fact there would have been no difficulty in obtain ing all the gliders and instructors which the Arm ' could have wanted for initial training. But, having lost the clubs and through them the gliders, possibly there was nothing else for it than to train on light planes, after which the pilots have to unlearn a lot of things laboriously absorbed on power-driven aircraft, and become accustomed to the idea that every landing is a forced landing, in the power pilot's sense. We knew quite early in the war that Germany used gliders for troop transport, and if the Army had not suffered from a total lack of imagination where air matters were concerned, it should have been possible to foresee the possibility that the British Army also might one day, if the war lasted long enough, be wanting troop-carrying gliders and pilots to fly them. Those who strove with might and main to convince the authorities of the desirability of letting at least some of the gliding clubs "carry on" ran their heads against brick walls, and at last, in despair, they had to give up the struggle. The Army has been very fortunate in getting as instruc tors as many as it has of those who were expert glidei pilots before the war. CONTENTS The Outlook War in the Air Here and There - Glider Training Behind the Lines - Evolution of the German Fighter Aircraft Characteristics - World Press Summary The R.A.F. Regiment I 3 6 7 10 n 12 a and b 13 14 From Every Angle Keeping Them Flying The Dornier Drogue Morale in Air Raids Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Cino-British - Fleet Air Arm " Met.'' Flight Correspondence Service Aviation - - - - - -• - '- - - - - - - - - - . - - IS 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NOT IN DOUBLE HARNESS. The two gliders are not being towed By the same aircraft but by onje each*' 'The towing cable of a third can be seen running across the foreground. An article on the training of glider pilots aj>peftrs on p. 7 of this issue.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
