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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 0822.PDF
326 FLIGHT APRIL IST, 1943 fighter and the heavy bomber, a vast array of types have been produced, some in classes that were barely thought of in 1918, and all have contributed their quota to the march of progress. Perhaps the most phenomenal advance has been made in the field of engine design and construction. Not only in the matter of power output and specific weight, but far more in reliability. Before the outbreak of the present war it was not unknown for a short-service officer to go through his entire service period without his squadron having a single forced landing due to engine failure. War risks are, of course, in a different cate- gory, but here, too, many lives of air crews have been saved by parachutes. In the 1914-18 war air crews were not supplied with parachutes ! In the space left available by paper supply limita- tions we have not been able to deal with every aspect of the b^twetn-the-wars period. For instance, the his- tory of airships has had to be omitted. In any case, it is* one of Government vacillation, missed opportunities and unfortunate disasters, and has had no effect upon 25 YEARS AGO The King's Message to the Royal Air Force. lo the T^lght Hon. Lard JFeir, Simla ry of State and 'President of the <-Air £ouncil. N this supreme hour of victor? I send greetings and heartfelt congratulations to aii ranks of the Royal Air Force. Our aircraft have been ever in the I forefront of the battle; pilots and observers have ! consistently maintained the offensive throughout the ever-changing fortunes of the day, and in the war zones our gallant dead have lain always beyond lie enemies Uncs or far out to sea.O UR far-flung squadrons have flown over home waters and foreign seas, the Western and Italian battle lines, Rhindand, the mountains of Macedonia, Gallipoli, Palestine, the plains of Meso- potamia, the forests and swamps of East Africa, the North-West frontier of India, and the deserts of Arabia, Sinai, and Darfur, T HE birth of the Royal Air Force, with its wonderful expansionand development, will ever remain one of the most remarkableachievements of the Great War. EVERYWHERE, by God's help, officers, men and women ofthe Royal Air Force have splendidly maintained our just cause, and the value of their assistance to the Navy, the Army, and to Home Defence has been incalculable. For all their magnificent work, self- sacrifice, a*nd devotion to duty, I ask you on behalf of the Empire to thank them. 1 ith, 1918 The R.A.F. celebrates its twenty-fifth birthday to-day. We reproduce its first congratulatory message, received from the late King George V at the end of the 1914-18 war. The wording would be equally appropriate to-day. Our pages this week are devoted, almost entirely, to a review of the aircraft, engines and work of the Royal Air Force through its 25 years of devoted service to the nation. CONTENTS . The Outlook - - War in the Air - Here and There - - - - R.A.F. Aircraft, 1918-1943 Aircraft Characteristics - - ' - Engine Progress, 1018-1943 Correspondence - A Quarter of a Century - Service Aviation - 325 327 - • 328 329 336, a & b 337 - • 342 343 349 the growth of the Royal Air Force from boyhood to maturity. Per Ardua ad Astra was the motto chosen for the R.A.F. The following pages reveal something of the "efforts." The degree to which the R.A.F. is "reach- ing the stars" is being recorded daily in the Air Ministry's communiques. Control Without—and with— OccupationW HEN questions are asked in Parlia- ment shortly about the taking over by the Ministry of Aircraft Produc- tion of all the shares in Short Brothers, it is very much to be hoped that Sir Stafford Cripps will not evade them by the Parlia- mentary phrase that " it is not in the National interest" that the country should be told. It is inevitable that when the Minister of Aircraft Production appoints '' controllers'' of three firms (as he has now done) a certain stigma must attach to those firms. If these drastic steps were taken merely because the firm in question was lagging behind in pro- duction, the country should be informed. The enemy could hardly benefit from such knowledge since he probably has a pretty shrewd idea anyway. There need be little surprise if a few firms have failed to reach peak production. Most of them have had to expand from very modest size into huge concerns (due to lack of foresight of successive Governments), and it would be surprising indeed if, with all the changes that have taken place, some had not been unequal to the extremely difficult task It is not even beyond the limits of possibility that the M.A.P. itself may have been to blame. Cases are not unknown of firms at first being prevented from expanding to the size they desired by M.A.P. and then being asked to expand to that size," or greater, in a much shorter time. In the case of Short Brothers, we believe we are right in saying that when one of their factories was damaged by a direct hit they were instructed not to repair that factory but to transfer to another site, much against their will. After something like a year, the deci- sion was rescinded, but by then much valu- able time had been lost. The Stirling design is not, perhaps, very well suited to quantity production, but M.A.P. accepted it, and its technicians should haVe foreseen that it was likely to cause certain production difficulties.
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