AERIAL DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 8

AERIAL DEATH.

J FUTURE WAR RISKS. ; NO RULES AND NO NEUTRAL GROUND. AMERICAN ACE PROPHESIES. NEW YORK, April 1. Colonel Edward Vernon Rickcnbacker says another great war would be a mat- . tor of air forces and that tho shadows ; cast by tho swooping 'planes would be . those of the wings of ghastly and unmerciful death. No man is better qualified to speak on such a subject. It was Eddie Rickenbacker, who commanded the 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron in the World War and was the leading ace of all United States flyers. He is entitled to wear the D.S.C. with nine palms, tho Croix de Guerre with four palms, and the Legion of Honour ribbon. Since the war, ho has been associated with the design of airplanes "and the forming and operation of airplane companies. "The next war," says Colonel Rickcnbacker, "will be a 'plane war, and I don't want to see it. Every housetop will be a battle front. There will bo no such thing as non-combatants; no neutral ground" Ino no-man's land. No agreement was | kept in tho last war. There will be no | rules in the next. I "Death hurled from the air will take I no account of whom it strikes. Civilians I will be no safer than soldiers; women and children will be no safer than men. Animate and the very products'of the earth will die, because the principle of war is to strike at the base of supplies. The animals become a combatant force, in that they are food for human kind. The produce of the earth becomes a combatant force, becauee the animals live on it. Even now," says Colonel Rickenbacker, "there is a gas developed which will destroy the produce and fertility of the eoil.

"But gas will not be the only agency used. There will be bombs, and the chances are that the 'planes will sow deadly bacteria in the crowded centres. 'Planes will be able to fly so high, far and fast that there will be small chance of adequate protection against surprise attack. There will be no safety on the mountain top. The people of the cities will desert their tall buildings and burrow like moles for safety. The shaft of an abandoned mine will become a palatial place of refuge. The next war will be one of extermination." Sees Defence Evolved. Still, Colonel Rickenbacker contends, a defence always has been evolved for every form of attack and he believes it • will be so in the case of death from the , air. , "The answer to 'planes," he says, "will not be 'planes, but wireless transmission 1 of power. Invisible electrical waves will fill the air, with power to destroy ignition systems, set 'planes on fire, or melt the metal of which they are constructed. Already experiments along these lines have shown the power to stop 1 magnetos from functioning." Questioned as to the stage of development and future of peacetime aviation, Colonel Rickenbacker replied: "Aviation is now in the stage where you don't know what it will do when it grows up. It is still an infant industry. Even the structure of the 'plane is undeveloped. The transport 'planes of the future will have no wings, only fins. They practically will be sealed oxygen chambers of the rocket type, projectiles capable of travelling 1000 miles an hour through the stratosphere, that ocean of air, the limits of which no man knows. "Thost planes," explained Colonel Rickenbacker, "probably will be shot or catapulted off the ground from rails, and they will land in a long huge funnel, where their speed gradually can be checked, , until they come to a stop. Private planes will be of the paddle wheel type, with ability to rise vertically and land in small spaces." The development in propulsion, said • the former ace, will proceed from the ] four cycle to the two cycle engine, then . to the multiple cylinder, the turbine, and lastly to the rocket type. , The last development, as he visions it, i will be the wireless transmission of power from stations on the ground. This J will do away with the weight of engines s and fuel. Planes will fly in the strato- j sphere and be able to stay in the air 1 indefinitely. '

.... , | Deprecates Scoffers. "When I say I believe this will como I in the next twenty-five years," said I Colonel Rickenbacker, "people think I'm I crazy. Well, when the Wrights first I made their flight at Kitty Hawk in 1003, I they would have thought any person ? crazy who prophesied that thirteen years I later men would fly the ocean. Yet, I Alcock and Brown made their flight in I 1910. The first ten years of aviation," I said the famous airman, "were creative. I The second ten were spent in trying to s apply the practical to the creative. The I last ten have been commercial, and when 1 anything reaches the commercial stage, I progress is swifter." The reason why development in avia- I tion has been slow, Colonel Rickenbacker points out, is that inventors are dealing with a new dimension. Aviation I also has had to overcome human doubt. I "But," he asserts, "there has been ten I times as much development in aviation in the past ten years as in the first six- I teen, and there will be ten times as much I development in the next ten years as ina| all the years before. _ "Metallurgy has played the greatest I single part in the. increased efficiency of the aeroplane. Yet the possibilities have I scarcely beon touched. Aluminium is I light, but magnesium is only half its I weight. And beryllium is only half the I weight of magnesium. "The development of aviation in the I next five years will resemble early rail- I road development. The automobile -was I not subsidised, but the aeroplane lines I obtain mail contracts. They will be I helped in a commercial way because they 1 are the only peace time development I which is 100 per cent efficient in time of I war." — (N.A.N. A.) ———— 1 —