SCIENCE AND AIR PERIL

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 17

SCIENCE AND AIR PERIL

SENSATIONAL REPORTS.

GERMAN DISCOVERY CLAIMED,

[From Our London Correspondent.]

August 19,

Tho rather tall story about a German wireless development that, enables aeroplanes to be brought down at will from a distance comes from Paris' originally, The claim is that the wireless current operates on the magneto, depriving the engine of its initiative, and compelling the pilot to come to earth. In Support of this story several recent instances are quoted where French civil aeroplanes wore suddenly and unaccountably put out of action when flying over German territory; and there is a rather vague account of a scientific tost of this now wireless development on motor cars, a number of which, driven out into the country one night from Berlin, were suddenly brought to a dead stop by the same agency, so the story goes), I find that practical scientists are not inclined altogether to scout these sensational reports. WAR EXPERIMENTS. A wireless defence against the air peril was anxiously sought during the war by Scientists of many countries, our own amongst others, I learn. Wo devoted considerable experiment to tho problem when tho German air raids on London threatened to become so serious a menace. Though nothing came of these experiments at the time, it is quite conceivable that the Gormans, with their patient scientific bent and the overwhelming French air squadrons on their Rhineland front, may have succeeded in carrying tho matter further. Of course, if any practical moanV of affecting tho aerial magnetos is devised, there would bo some counter-stroke in tho way of protecting that vital spot, but the possibility of some powerful wireless agency that would be a sure defence against air attack cannot be overlooked by scientific workers, and would restore to us our old insular security again. The marvels of modern science are almost inexhaustible, and wireless is merely at itfl crude beginnings. G ERMA N PERTINACITY. French scientists are fully persuaded that in this matter the Germans have ef.olen a march on French air command. And it is certainly disconcerting to recall the many instances in which during the war we worked sedulously to perfect some mechanism, failed in our efforts, and found afterwards that tho Germans had succeeded. One striking example may be quoted now. Some means of enabling the look-out to penetrate thick fog was eagerly sought by our navail and air authorities during the war. We were never quite able to hit upon tho right thing. But when tho Gormans surrendered their fleet after the armistice one of our scientists came upon a queer sort of glass in the equivalent of a U boat’s chart room. On ■being tested in a practical manner, this glass proved to be the perfect fog glass for which we had been striving in vain. So the story about Gorman wireless and aerial magnetos, if not true, is certainly “ bon trovato.”