FLYING TARGETS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 11, 14 January 1943, Page 4

FLYING TARGETS

AIR MARKSMANSHIP FIGHTER PILOT'S ACE CARD LONDON. . "Don't shoot until you can see the rivets in his aircraft," is the modern R.A.F. application of the musketry instructor's favourite injunction. The man who can outfly the enemy but cannot bring him down is just wasting good material. He forgets that his flying skill is only a means to an end — destruction of the enemy. Flying Training Command is laying increasing insistence on the doctrine: "Good marksmanship is as important as good flying." With this object in view, ■ the gunnery training section of the command is applying a lesson from the last war to encourage those fighter pilots already on operations who may be feeling disappointed with the results of their encounters with the Hun. A poster has been prepared which recalls that many famous pilots of the last war — Ball, McCudden Bishop, Willie Coppens, Richthofen —for a time experienced bitter disappointment until they realised that victory in combat is only possible to an expert shot, using an efficient gun. Thereafter they all spent every moment of spare time practising firing, lining up their sights and evolving various technical and mechanical aids to accurate gunnery. Success came to them when they had thus appreciated where the gap in their efficiency lay. Use of Camera Gun We can take it for granted that the great fighting pilots and gunners of the future will also pass through this phase, and that they will not succeed until they have similarly defect. Air gufinery is not so simple as it may seem to the marksman who is always on the ground. One hears so much from pilots and air gunners about "deflection shots." Deflection deals with the sighting calculation needed—decided in a fraction of a second—to determine how far one must aim in front of an aircraft to ensure that the bullets arrive at a given spot at the same time as the plane. As the objective may be travelling at almost any angle across the lire of vision, the problem becomes involved, but accurate aiming in the most difficult circumstances can be acquired Mock combat, in which the cine-camera-gun is used, provides firstclass practice. Analysis of cameragun films taken in real combat is equally valuable. Almost every fighter now carries the camera gun, and research on the films shows the mam faults in tactics.