AERIAL WARFARE. A NEW DEPARTMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 145, 21 June 1909, Page 9

AERIAL WARFARE. A NEW DEPARTMENT.

CONSULTING BODY APPOINTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 7th May. The British Government has taken a great step forward in, aeronautics, and this country is to consider seriously the possible conquest of the air. On Wednesday, in the House of Commons, Mr. Asquith made the following important announcement :—: — "The Government is taking steps towards placing its organisation for aerial navigation on a more satisfactory footing. As the result of a, report made by the Committee of Imperial Defence the work of devising and '-onstvueting dirigible airships and aeroplanes has been appoifcioned between the navy and the army. The Admiralty is building certain dirigibles, while certain others of a different type will be constructed at the War Office balloon factory at AldershoL, which is about to be reorganised for the purpose. The investigation and provision of aeroplanes are also assigned to the War Office. With £i view to securing that . the higlic&b scientific talent shall be brought to beai on the problems which will have to be solved in the course of the work of the two departments, the National Physical Laboratory has been requested to organise at its establishment at Teddington a special department for continuous investigation, experimental and otherwise, which from time to time must- be solved in order to obtain adequate guidance in construction. For the superintendence of the investigations at. the National Physical Laboratory and for general advice on the scientific problems arising in connection with the work of the Admiralty and War Office in aerial construction and navigation, I have appointed a special committee, which includes the following names :—: — President, the Right Honourable Lord Rayleigh, 0.M., F.R.S. (the famous mathematician and physicist) ; chairman, Mr. H. T. Glazebrook, F.R.S. (director of the National Physical Laboratory); members, MajorGeneral Sir Charles Hadden, K.C.B. (Master-General of Ordnance, representing the Army), Captain R. U.S. Bacon, R.N., C.V.0., D.S.O. (first captain of the Dreadnought, representing the Navy), Sir A. G. Greenhill, F.R.S. (former Professor of Mathematics at Woolwich), Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S. (Director of the Meteorological Office), Mr. Horace Darwin, F.R.S. (a son of the great Charles Darwin), Mr. H. R. A. Mallock, F.R.S. (Consulting Engineer), Professor J. E. Petavel, F.R.S. (Professor of Engineering at Manchester), and Mr. F. W. Lanchester (motor expert)." Adequate funds have been placed at the disposal of the committee, and a permanent non-party Aerial Committee i has been founded in the House. All parties unite in welcoming the step taken. The committed will form a link with the Army and Navy, and experiments with dirigibles and aeroplanes will be pushed forward. No foreign Government Uas so complete a scientific organisation as this will be, and now that we are at the beginning of a now era in warfare the Empire cannot afl'ord to lag behind.