FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1948
1948 - 2117.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER Editorial Director G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. Editor - -CM. POULSEN Assistant Editor - MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. (WING COft., R.A.f.V.R.) Art Editor - ' • JOHN YOXALL FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE W6RLD .• FOUNDED WOQ Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices • DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams : Flightpres, Sedist, London. .-., ••.-T -•• .." Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (60 lines). COVENTRY 8 - 10, CORPORATION ST. GLASGOW, C.2: 26B, RENFIELD ST. BIRMINGHAM, 2 . MANCHESTER, 3 : " EDWARD HOUSE, 260, DEANSGATE. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Te/egrams : Autopress, Birmingham'. Te/epn^LVBIackfriars 44"2^lines') Telegrams Mine. Glasgow. Telephone: Coventry 5210. Telephone : Midland 7191 (7 lines). Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Telephone Central 4357 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Home: Twelve months, £3 Is. Od. Six months, £1 10s. 6d. BY AIR: To any country in Europe (except Poland). Twelve months, £5 Is. Od. Six months, £2 Overseas: Twelve months, £2 18s. 6d. Qi. id. To Canada and U.S.A. Six months, $16 No. 2086. Vol. LIV December 16th, 1948 Thursdays, One Shilling Outlook Stormy SunriseC ONSCIOUS of the significance of Exercise Sunrise, last week's naval/air operation, Flight arranged widespread coverage of activities in Coastal and Bomber Commands. Excepting some passages relating to "Coastal," the reports of our representatives in this issue are not reassuring, and in this they accord with those of other aeronautical observers. A preliminary appraisal of the exercise must relate the operational aspects to questions of man-power and equip- ment. The gravity of a situation in which Britain's heavy-bomber force, or a sizeable proportion of it—even with exemplary support from Coastal Command, and recourse to an "atom bomb"—was unable to deal with a storm-tossed Naval formation, is immediately apparent. Public concern has been the greater because the layman—ever recalling the war record of Bomber Command—has tended to take for granted such illusory bulwarks as an '' all-weather bombing force,'' and a " small, but extremely effective Bomber Command." That the country should be fully acquainted with cer- tain sobering facts is an urgent necessity. First, it must be realized that no mock battle is needed to show up de- ficiencies m the Royal Air Force. It is common know- ledge that Bomber Command is at this moment equipped with two types of heavy bomber—one of wartime vin- tage, the second a development of the first; that special- ized anti-shipping squadrons which did such valiant and effective work in wartime no longer exist; and that Britain's weather does not always afford protection, but -can gravely endanger the security of our shores. 1- Our present lack of up-to-date bombers and strike air- • Craft is primarily attributable to the post-war run-down in Service man-power and to the absorption of available ? money in the re-equipment of Fighter Command. Failing I the adoption of American aircraft, little improvement in ' the technical quality of our bomber force can be ex- pected for two or three years. Concerning personnel, the appalling problems affecting the provision of suffi- cient trained man-power are even more obvious, especi- ally since they were so forthrightly stated by nc less an authority than Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert in last week's issue of Flight, and were extensively quoted in the national Press. But whatever conclusions are drawn from Exercise Sunrise, and whatever construc- tions are placed upon recent utterances, any suggestion that the R.A.F. is a "back number" must be instantly and firmly refuted. A service which can make such effective use of scant resources as the R.A.F. is doing is very much a fighting service. Any tradition founded on personal sacrifice and effort is not to be destroyed by pay forms, reduced sweet rations, nor yet by unpopulai new ranks and badges. True, grumbling in the R.A.F. to-day may exceed that amount which every service con- siders its inviolable right. Slackness on the part of indi- viduals may or may not have been the cause of some unserviceability in Sunrise; what is more important is the spirit in which ground crews worked short-handed to prepare their machines, and the cheerfulness which pre- vailed among aircrews in face of a succession of bitter disappointments. The Credit Side CONCERN for the well-being and efficiency of theR.A.F. must never be allowed to decline intopanic. Anyone who harbours a notion that the R.A.F. has degenerated into impotent flabbiness is coun- selled to study the work of Transport Command on the Berlin air lift—an undertaking, incidentally, which has drained home Com/hands of some of their most highly trained ground staff. They will do well, moreover, to bear in mind that many units are based farther afield than Germany, and that crews and equipment operat- ing from the United Kingdom are continually bringing z i
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
