MISTRESS OF THE AIR

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2646, 27 October 1919, Page 2

MISTRESS OF THE AIR

HOW BRITAIN LEADS. “ The British have ruled the wave. 1 hey will rule the air. They will lly. They will fly for sport. They will lly to increase the range of their lighting ships to 150 miles. They will lly to make armies on wings. They will fly with passengers. They will fly with freight. They will lly to the uttermost parts of the British Empire. They will fly to knit closer the ties of Britain.

“Thu present supremacy ef the Brili-h iu flying probably will he questioned by no one. The war forced them to go up. The need of defence of an island gave then supremacy on the sea; tho need of defence of an island and of an Empire pushed them into supremacy iu the air. The need of sea power gave them thei l, I)takes and then their Nelsons; the need of air power gave them their men who fought above the clouds —a knighthood of the twentieth century. The need <-i sea power developed their fighting naval machines and their merchant marine; the need of air power has given them first place in the design and manufacture of fighting aircraft and of the aircraft of peace.” These comments (says the ‘ Sunday Chronicle ’) are from an American. .Mr R. W. Child, who has returned to the Unit ’d States after a visit as the guest of (lie British authorities to enlighten public opinion there on what Brißiin is doing in reconstruction work. GENERAL SYKES’S WORK. Wilting in ‘ Collier's.’ Mr Child pays a warm tribute to Major-general Sir f. M. Sykes, e. hief of tho British Air Staff and now Controller-General of Civil Aviation, who. he says, is not a visionary.

The conceptions of Sykes, .indeed, of all the flying men one meets, and, in fart, of the British public who regard aviation as a definite element in the new after-the-war world. a degree unappreciated and uuimagined in America, are not. however, limited to a determination to extend Britain's supremacy on the waters to supremacy of the heavens also. flight is regarded by Sykes—it came out in all he said to me—as something new belonging to mankind.” Mr Child continues :

Tho British point of view has left ns as a people somewhat behind, just as it has left behind even the french. We arc still thinking of aviation in military terms.

Sykes and the British are thinking already of the kind of aircraft to revolutionise naval battles and drop over into Russia and put a curl into misrule ihere and carry small parcels from a wife in Hampstead to a husband in Calcutta, and how weather and the hitherto uncharted currents of high altitudes can he forecast in a manner of which the meteorologist of yesterday dreamed not. and of “ red routes ” to Cairo and the navigation of the air which will prevent a pilot who starts from tho Azores from having to take dinner in the African jungle. FOUR YEARS AGO. This is forward-going! Four years ago, when in London the Zeppelins floated over, like big . igavs with silver hands where the searchlight struck the British Royal flying Corps was a- child in arms compared to the flyers and flights of these days. Who would have then forecast that before the war would he done the British flyers would have stabbed ever 3.600 enemy planes out of the sky? Or lost 2.800 in air 'battles? Before 1.917 the Royal flying Corps casualties were only 1.637. In 1917 (hey wore 5.416. and in 1918 that of the British force were 9.61.1 I This is the story of greater losses mounting up in spite of greater skill and better machines, and in spite of the fact that the tables of victories were turned against the enemy. It is the story of Hying as an ever-increasing factor in war. The British are asking themselves whether naval power of the future "ill remain in the guns—the heavy’hitting guns of long range —or in the armored and speedy “mother ship” of aircraft. If yon rely on your guns, you have a range effective for hits of eight, 10, 12 miles or more. At present that is the method of hitting.

If naval ain raft <lovolop as fast in the future as is now promised, (lie battleship I of the future will deliver her knock-out missiles, say a hundred miles away, on wines of gossamer. She will send out perhaps /locks of night moths dropping ■death's own cogs. On March, 25. 1919. j one read in Europe that the U.S.S. Idaho, I the largest figliting ship afloat, had guns i into commission at Philadelphia with a j crew of 1.400 men. Will air fighting at sea make junk of her in the days to come? j The ease of land fighting is not far i different. .More ami more deadly become | the high explosive bomb and the gas j bomb, longer and still longer the range of the bombing planes; ever more impressively do they loom np as probable ■determining factors of future wars. It would 1)0 folly to say that aircraft fighting had displaced the primary element—infantry—when the armistice was signed. I»nt the tendency was clearly in that direction. OUR AIR FORCE. When the war came to an end there were more than 27.CG0 Hying officers in the British air forces; toward the upkeep of a substantial air force there is no wobbling in the present British altitude. “ How many air battles were fought by your men during the war?"’ 1 asked. “All in all, not loss than 40,000,” said the young major who has access to the figures. “It is one of the reasons why we are asking for a sizable air force. We shall have a peace footing- of over 100 squadrons, with over 5.0C0 officers and at least 50,000 men.” Du we remember that this is more of a peace, jinny than the army of fighting men on foot in the United States mainland when the war began in Europe? Shall wo in America not mark the fact that when the war ended the British manufacturers wore turning out 4.000 effective airplanes every 50 days?

lb is, however. in civil living (hat the present imagination of the Air Ministry, of Parliament, and of the British Press and people is caught to a degree of which wo Americans know nothing. binding the empire.

I ho kind of fact which stimulates this imagination is found in the rounds made these days hy the political l officer of the British at, Bagdad. An inspection which once took him two months is now finished in 48 hours. The kind of fact which stimulates this imagination is found in the plans for the “ all-red routes ” which the British are making to bind the empire together—to Egypt; from Cairo to (la lent la ; Calcutta to .Singapore ; Singaporl to Australia and New Zealand. Civil jiving during the war was prohibited ; it is good prophecy that the removal of the restrictions will result in the .British talcing to 1 he air in a way to astonish ns. .Manufacturers, relying on the attitudel of the Air Ministry, arc going forward with planes tor commercial work. Not to private initiative, however, but rather to Government oversight. control, patronage, and research the British are entrusting the future of civil and commercial flying. People who live under Governments which turn their hacks upon aviation as a new and vital I factor in war and in the economic and social life of the world may buy aeroplanes and go up in them, but ultimately, fur tho public safety Governments will have to treat flying as a national and not as a. private affair. Tho men who have put tho British first in the field of war flying and of making war flyers are going to pub the British, first in the field of

peace-flying and making of peace fivers Tlie.sc men begin with the idea that flying is a national neeessitv.