AIR ESTIMATES

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 10

AIR ESTIMATES

THE BRITISH INCREASE

FIRST-LINE STRENGTH

The Air Estimates for 1936 make a gross total of £43,490,600, or £14,304,500 more than last year's Estimates, excluding the provision made recently to cover the cost of measures arising out of the Abyssinian trouble, (says "The Times"). The net'figure, when various appropriations-in-aid have been allowed, amounts to £39,000,000. or £13,015,000 more than that of last year. That sum provides for the completion of the original scheme of expansion and for part of- the increased cost of maintaining a bigger Air Force.

That scheme contemplated the creation of seventy-one new squadrons. In the current financial year twenty will have been set up and fifty-one will remain to be formed in the, year' to which the new Estimates refer. As the last Estimates' were roughly £8,000,000 more than the average Estimates of the five preceding years, it might appear that next 'year's further increase of £11,500,000 over the normal bears no equivalent relation to the processes of expansion which have still to be carried out. The superficial disparity is explained' by the fact that a large part of the recruiting necessary for the complete realisation of the scheme has already been done, a great deal of the land for new aerodromes and stations has been bought, and much building work has been paid for in the current year. COST OF ENGINES. The main increase in the new Estimates compared with last year is that of £7,339,000 for technical and warlike stores, the total for which is now £18,491.000. Next to it is a rise of £2,507,500 in respect of works, buildings, and lands, the total allowance in this case being £4,092,500. 'The only other big increase is that of £1,516,000 in the Vote for pay and allowances of the R.A.F. . ■ ; In the Vote for technical and warlike stores £8,335,000 is set aside to cover aeroplanes, arid another £4,525,000 to meet the cost of engines. With spares, the total under this head amounts to . £ 14,680,000. The cost of airframes in this Vote 'is nearly doubled, compared with last year, whereas the cost of engines has risen by barely one-third. The explanation would appear to be that, while the price of engines remains iairly constant,, the costof airframes, due to the tendency to increase the proportion of medium and heavy bombers, is rising. Expenditure on works, buildings, and lands is largely compounded' of the cost of new works, alterations; and additions, for which £5,280,000 is allowed. The sum set aside for purchases of land amounts to £416,000, which is a large increase on last year and yet shows that better progress has been made in this matter than was expected. A very heavy increase in the amount of armament and ammunition is evidently contemplated. The Vote on this head is £1,445,000 more than last year. Under the heading of pay and allowances it is also to be noted that with the expanded Force the opportunities of promotion have much improved. The establishment allows for four extra air marshals, five additional air commodores, and half as many group captains again as there were last year. TRAINING OF RESERVES. Some reference, is made in the Secretary of State's memorandum to projects for creating reserves on a war basis. This may be presumed to apply to men as well as machines, but the plan is not developed-in detail except through the announcement: that, the present scheme of training the R.A.F. reserves, which demands an initial period of nine weeks' training, of reservists recruited direct from civil life, will be revised to offer less onerous conditions. '. . ':"'•'

These Estimates do not take account of the additional expansion, which, as was mentioned in the White Paper on. Defence, will involve "the addition of another 250 first-line . aircraft. This project will riot begin■ to be realised until the financial - year 1937-38, ■ and will probably not be completed until the following year. When it is carried out it will mean the creation of only six new squadrons—two for. co-opera-tion with the Regular Army.arid four extra Auxiliary squadrons, for co-opera-tion with the. Territorial Army. . This will account for seventy-two of the additional first-line aircraft, leaving another 178 to be accommodated in the squadrons which by that, time will be in existence. The intention is to maintain certain types of squadron on a basis of eighteen instead of the usual twelve first-line aircraft.

The position at.the end.of the year covered by these Estimates will be a first-line strength in the Home Defence Force of 1500 aircraft, with 270 firstline machines in units oversea! and about 220 in the Fleet Air Arm. As the Minister's memorandum points out, this increase in first-line strength will not reveal the whole of the advantage derived from the expansion, because the relative number of medium and heavy bombers will have been increased, and the greater range and load of these aircraft will represent,a further addition to the "offensive arid defensive power of the home defence force."