OUT-OF-DATE MACHINES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 68, 20 March 1936, Page 11

OUT-OF-DATE MACHINES

"Slipstream" refers lo the published list of machines operated by the New Zealand Air Force and states that the majority are now far past their service usefulness, even were they equipped with sufficient armament, ammunition, bombs, etc. .

The Bristol Fighter, he writes, although one of the finest aeroplanes in the world twenty years ago, can now be purchased unused in England from surplus stocks for a little more than £100. Also, a Gloster Gamecock, the immediate predecessor of the Grebe, was recently procured at Home, without engine, for £18.

Recently there appeared in "The Post" descriptions of some of the latest British fighting machines, and it does not need any stretch of the imagination to realise that foreign nations have aircraft of equal performance. When one thinks how long out-of-date machines would last against a Gloster Gladiator with a top speed of 260 m.p.h., and carrying four machine-guns, or a Hawker monoplane capable of well over 300 miles an hour, one realises the very low ebb to which the Air Defence of this country has fallen. It was stated in your paper that the twelve torpedo-bombers, the only.modern fighting machines we possess, have no torpedoes or launching gear, a ludicrous state of affairs.