AMERICAN AIR FLEET

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 14, 16 January 1918, Page 7

AMERICAN AIR FLEET

GERMAN COMMENT.

American plans for war in the air have hitherto been either ignored or ridiculed in the German press, Dut on 9th November the Cologne Gazette devoted a more or less reasoned front-page article teikeir consideration. After publishing the details of the vote of £128,000,000 for a fleet of 22,600 aeroplanes and the training and. maintenance of a corresponding personnel, the semi-official journal says :— "Although Americans are past-masters in the propagation of. big figures, it would be wrong to minimise the fact that the American manufacturing industry is now putting forth the greatest efforts to produce the largest numbers of flying machines for war use in the shortest possible time. It is tackling the problem in the broad-gauge American fashion. To facilitate production on a huge scale builders have adopted a standardised engine, while efforts will also be made to standardise types as much as possible. "According to a reported utterance of the general in charge of the American flying forces it is hoped to turn out 22.600 aeroplanes by the end of June, 1918. This figure is very considerably smaller than the immeasurably exaggerated total contemplated by the Air Bill, but it is exaggerated too. So far not a single American aeroplane has been observed at the front.

"As a matter of fact an American fleet of 22,600 aeroplanes will never appear at the front. A front flying machine, according to experience, has an average life of three, at the outside four, months. At theend of that time it is useless. If the United States want to maintain a fleet of 22,600 machines at the front, it will,' at the end of four months, have to substitute an entirely new and equally large fleet. Therefore, in order to, maintain a fleet in the war zone for a year only the Americans would need not 22,600 machines, but something like 70.000. The production of such a vast number, with everything required in the way of spare parts, will overtax even the capacities of the 'land of unlimited possibilities.' Actually there will be required such heavy deductions from a total of 22,600 machines for training purposes and coast defence that if the programme is only to fill the Americans' requirements for one year we need not count on seeing more than 15 or 20 per cent, of the Americans' vaunted 22,600 machines at the front at any one time. This percentage will not suffice to 'sweep the heavens clear of German aeroplanes' or to 'lay the industrial districts of Western Germany in ruins.' "