ITALIAN AIRCRAFT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 202, 16 July 1936, Page 2

ITALIAN AIRCRAFT.

FLYING IN RAREFIED ATMOSPHERE. The tremendous part played by the Italian Air Force in the Abyssinian campaign is revealed in statistical detail by a report published in the Romo newspaper Ottobre. /< The figures contained in this report are of gieat interest, and show the varied uses to which an air arm in a, modern war is put. Four hundred aircraft of all types were in service, and these flew a total of 35,000 hours. Casualties amounted to 86 pilots and specialists killed, and 150 wounded; 1500 tons of explosives were dropped, and 270,000 machine-gun cartridges fired in 178 attacks. The number of bomb-, ing attacks was 872, and of reconnaissance attack flights 454. Longrange reconnaissance flights numbered 830, and close-range flights 2149; 300 hours were flown by machines engaged on aerial photography. Great use of the air arm was made for the carrying of supplies to outposts in inaccessible positions for road transport —1000 tons were dropped by parachute from aircraft whose;- average length of flight was 310 miles, and 504 tons of materials such as fuel, stores and shelters were dropped at the four main advanced points of support. . . The construction ot aerodromes and landing grounds involved the use of 16,000 motors ana lorries, and these covered the enormous tot a i of 1,860,000 miles, and carried 75.000 tons of material. . . This aerial activity would have been impressive had it taken place under normal conditions, but it is the more so when it is realised that the starting points were in the rarefied atmosphere of 131-140 degrees Fahrenheit, and between 6500 and 10,000 feet high. •