FLYING OR MARCHING?

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 45, 23 February 1926, Page 7

FLYING OR MARCHING?

WHICH MAKES AN AIRMAN? BRITISH TRAINING METHODS. A VIGOROUS CONDEMNATION. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.; (Received 10 a.m.) LONDON, February 22. "Bureaucracy is strangling aviation," says the "Daily Mail" air expert. "Britain," he says, "spends more and gets less than any other country. Her horde of officials are less concerned in the development of flying research and the construction of new and powerful machines than in providing barracks for turning out airmen on the parade ground as soldiers who are so efficient at marching past that they could better be described as a 'Royal Ground Force.' Skilled mechanics are gravely discontented with the needless drilling and inspections." The "Daily Mail," in a leader on the subject, says: "The Air Force is infected hy the bow-and-arrow spirit of the Ministry, and is being developed on radically faulty lines. National defence costs £115,000,000, is greater than that of any other country, and for which this country gets no proper value. Furthermore, the Army's eavoment is inferior to that of 1918. while" the Admiralty's programme is so old-fashioned that it leaves its bases and dockyards exposed to air attacks." —("Sun.")