AVIATION'S GREAT ADVANCES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 177, 27 July 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

AVIATION'S GREAT ADVANCES

By TSJO.

matic hydraulic brakes to bring the machine to a standstill after regaining the ground. Modern aircraft have a "ceiling" of something like 30,000 ft; those of the last war about 20,000 ft. This old height limit would appear to have been due not so much to the aircraft as to the fact that pilots hnd no artificial aids to high flying. Looking back, it seems remarkable that the aviators of 1914 were able to climb so high without oxygen. Nowadays, with the closed cockpit, oxygen is essential at 15,000 ft, and if a pilot intends going really high he generally starts using it very much earlier. Ho breathes his oxygen through the same mask which acts as a speakingtube to the remainder of the crew. This is a big advance on the earliest efforts, when the airman had a contraption something like a dentist's mask fitting over his face. Carry Eight Guns In no department of flying has there been such a revolutionary change as :'n armament. Machines used at the beginning of the last war defended themselves or attacked an enemy with a revolver or rifle carried by the pilot. Some time later a gun was mounted on a device in appearance something like a motor car spring. Next, 'planes had one or two guns firing forward through the propeller. The present-day fighter carries a formidable battery of eight guns —four in each wing—all of which are operated from a single control-button in the cockpit. Some machines even fire cannonshells. During the Great War, once an aircraft had left the ground it had no further means of communication with its base. To-day, it can keep in constant contact by means of wireless, and pilots can talk to one another in the air. They can get weather reports, they can be guided home, they can give information to land forces regarding enemy positions and troop movements. In bomber machines each member of the crew—the pilot, observer and air gunner—can talk to the others through electrical instruments. Frequently, In the old machines, pilot and observer were separated by as much as eight feet of tanks, and the elementary speak-ing-tubes were of little practical use. Pilots often sat on the most vulnerable part of the machine, the petrol tank, which is now usually tucked away in the cavities of the wings. Blind-flying apparatus and many other ingenious "gadgets" now enable.machines

to take off in almost any weather. "Q. 8.1." conditions are practically unknown for service aircraft. Camouflaged Fields On tlie ground there have been striking changes. Aerodromes are no longer wellknown landmarks, with their big hangars, their repair shops, and their operation rooms. They are secret, wellcamouflaged fields, the net-covered aircraft deployed in the open, repairs being carried out where they stand; while erazily striped, hidden tents accommodate the operational staffs. In one fighter mess is the squadron diary of its last war exploits. The liovs smile when they look at the pictures in the album of the aircraft which that same squadron last used to fight, the Germans. It is rather like a woman finding it difficult to lielieve that she wore such a hat 20 odd years ago.