New Luftwaffe?

It is reported from America that an agreement has been reached on a West German air force. Mr. O.K. Armstrong, former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, writing in the American Air Force Magazine, states that a strength of 1,500 aircraft had been agreed upon. It would be organized into 20 wings, and would include about 900 modern jet fighters.

The air force would be added to West Germany's contribution of 12 army divisions to the European Defence Community, if and when this was agreed upon. Despite objections from Britain and France, Germans who served in World War II will be admitted to the new air arm.

Nuclear Weapon

An announcement made in Washington last week stated that the United States now has a "deliverable" version of the hydrogen bomb. Just how powerful this weapon can be is demonstrated by reports of appalling destruction caused by a test explosion at Bikini on March 1st; it was apparently several times more powerful than the first hydrogen explosion at Eniwetok in 1952. The latest test, made with the device on a tower, is reported to have produced an effect equal to 45 to 50 megatones of T.N.T. (one megatone equals a million tons) and the shock of the explosion was felt at Kwajalein, 176 miles away. It was, in fact, much more violent than expected, and a test with an air-dropped hydrogen bomb, scheduled for a few days later, had to be postponed while the scientists revised their calculations.

It happens here, too

From an outspoken editorial on industrial smoke, in a recent issue of the journal of America's Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (the heading is "Our Stinking Atmosphere"): "Only the airplane pilot knows how terrible and widespread is this almost constant layer of waste products. Only an airplane pilot has had the unnerving experience of climbing his plane up through as much as two miles of the stuff, breaking out on top of this vast depth of pollution into bright sunshine, in a cloudless sky. A few city fathers have seen this frightening spectacle from the air - and have passed laws with teeth in them. Factories and other industrial plants can control their waste products, just as our sewage systems control sewage. But it is going to take strong-minded, fearless public officials to make the big and usually influential industrialists in their home communities observe certain standards of cleanliness, just as many of them now are being forced to stop polluting our rivers and lakes."

Source: Flight International