EXTRA £12,448,500

Northern Advocate, 7 March 1936, Page 5

EXTRA £12,448,500

EXTENDING BRITISH AIR FORCE

[British Official Wireless.l (Received 1.30 p.m.). RUGBY, March 6,

The Air Estimates for 1936 amount to £43,490,600, which exceeds the original Estimates for 1936 by £19,639,500, and the final Estimates for the year by £12,488,500. These increases, states a Government memorandum, are necessary .to finance the further stage of the expansion scheipe, which is due to be substantially completed by the end of the financial year. The 1936 Estimates for the Fighting Services, together with the Naval and Army Estimates published earlier in the week show that the expenditure for 1936 is up £26,544,500.

Details of the Air Estimates show that this year the payroll of the Royal Air Force is estimated at £6,518,000, compared with the 1935 Estimate, including the Supplementary Estimate, of £5,002,000. Provision for technical and warlike stores, including experimental and research services, is £18,491,000 compared with £11,152,000 in 1935. Civil aviation is also to receive more than the previous year’s Estimates, being £760,000 compared with £595,500 in 1935. i Expansion Plans.

The programme of expansion begun last May envisaged an addition of 71. new squadrons to the metropolitan air strength by March 31, 1937, bringing the total strength of the force in Britain to 123 squadrons. The present Estimates are for the substantial completion of this programme. Four new auxiliary squadrons are to be formed, and five regular squadrons, at present allotted for army cooperation, are to be reorganised. The increased first-line establishment resulting from these measures will provide a total of 129 squadrons at Home, of which 20 will be nonregular, with the' strength in first-line aircraft of approximately 1750. The execution of this revised programme, including provision for full #war reserves, will extend into 1937 and 1938. These figures, which are exclusive of the fleet air arms compare with 53 squadrons and 580 firstline aircraft on April 1, 1935. Overseas Squadrons. The existing 25 squadrons overseas will be maintained during 1936 in first-lihe strength of approximately 270 first-line aircraft, although the formation by 1939 of a further 12 squadrons for service overseas has been approved. Supplementary grants total approximately £.7,000,000 for extension of the Air Force programme, and special measures in connection necessitating the despatch of air reinwith the Italo-Abyssinian dispute forcements to the Mediterranean and North-East African areas, also Kenya and Somaliland. Viscount Swinton, Air Minister, directed attention to the fact that the expansion programme necessitated the traininf of 2500 pilots and 22,000 airmen in less than two years. The success that has so far attended recruiting indicates that the programme, despite its unexampled peacetime scale, will be achieved. Civil Aviation. The civil aviation vote is a 28 per cent increase over that of last year. Of this sum £204,000 will be devoted to improving ground facilities, with a view to speeding up existing services; £20,000 is earmarked for Imperial Airways’ experimental Atlantic flights; and £75,000 is allocated for construction of necessary flying boats and land plane bases. Imperial Airways subsidies for European arid England-India services are lower, in accordance with agreements reached. Special subsidies are allocated in respect of the New YorkBermuda and Penang-Hongkong services, the latter of which will open soon. France is authorising its operations over Indo-China.