DEFENCE OF LONDON.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3573, 4 March 1924, Page 8

DEFENCE OF LONDON.

WONDERFUL AIRCRAFT. WORLD’S BEST "FIGHTERS.” BOMBS FROM THE CLOUDS. Great strides are being made In the perfecting of London’s air defences. Special machines of great power and speed are being rapidly built, and a call has been Issued for 400 more men to man them. Suitable candidates are to be commissioned immediately under the* Air Ministry’s short service scheme. Nearly 350 of these new offlcets will be placed on home defence, and will fly the finest machines possessed by any Power. This will bring the total of short-service officers engaged on flying duty to 1400. For the new air defence scheme, apart from this provision for fresh pilots, aircraft firms are busy constructing ’planes for guarding such a vital “nerve-centre” as London. These machines, in climb, speed and manoeuvring power, will far exceed anything produced before. For all-round capabilities some of them will excel anything else in the world. REMARKABLE MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

Sheer speed in a modern air-fighter Is not everything, though it is a great deal. What Is almost equally important is that such a ’plane should have the power of manoeuvring during a combat, with extreme rapidity and ease. Also, the machine needs to be as invulnerable as possible to machine gun bullets.

It is in their mingling of the fighting qualities that the new ’planes, which will soon be guarding London from a chain of specially-chosen aerodromes, will mark such a stride forward in aeronautical design. Some of them will be able to attain an altitude of 20,000 feet within eight minutes of leaving the ground. Some will also be driven by 850 h.p. engines of 14 cylinders. Engines will be air-cooled instead of water-cooled, thus dispensing with the impedimenta necessary in water-cooling; and, in addition, these engines will be so compact, and the whole machines so handy, that their pilots will be able to perform all sorts of new fighting manoeuvres.

One new type of single-seater fighter, for the home defence programme, will be fitted with an engine placed upside down so as to give the pilot the clearest possible view forward. It will develop as much as 500 h.p. This purely attacking ’plane—-one of the most deadly in existence —will rush in upon an opponent at more than 200 miles an hour. STEEL ’PLANES LIGHTER THAN WOOD. Perhaps the most remarkable de. vclopment of all will be the now defence ’planes, built throughout of the finest steel. Machine gunners and pilot will be specially protected in steel cockpits. In the building of these fighters of steel, Britain leads the entire world at the present time. One of these aeroplanes constructed throughout of steel, with all the advantages which this implies, can be made appreciably lighter than a similar machine of wood.

An integral part of the new defensive offensive in the air will be the power to strike sudden blows at the distant air harbours from which the enemy squadrons may set out to attack London. In this regard new pilots will be given bombing ’planes which in their speed, range, and instrumental equipment, will be available in the latest stages of the war. These bombing pilots will have such wonderful aids to navigation that when approaching enemy territory on a day-light raid they will be able to seek deliberately any cloud banks there may be in the sky. Hidden within these, and yet navigating accurately, they will creep nearer to their objective, emerging suddenly, when the time comes, to drop their loads of bombs in a surprise attack. After that they will dart upwards again into the shelter of the clouds.