GERMANY'S AIR STRENGTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19040, 10 June 1925, Page 9

GERMANY'S AIR STRENGTH.

SIGNIFICANT FACTORS. LOST STATUS INVOLVED. MEANS TO ITS RECOVERY. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received 10.5 p.m.) Times. LONDON, June 8. The aeronautical expert of tho Times says it is clear that tho German people are rapidly being educated to believe that their future is bound up in aerial development, and that by this means they will eventually recover their former position in tho world. Already air lines radiate from Berlin in all directions. They are extending their influence deep into Eastern Europe, and toward Asia. The correspondent draws attention to the sporting flying, which he says cannot bo ignored in calculating Germany's air power. This recovery may have a peaceful purpose, But it is also providing Germany with a strong reserve of pilots and with many firms who are acquainted with aircraft construction. The Paris correspondent of the Morning Post, in a recent despatch to his paper, said: —A report which I understand has been made to tho trench Government by a high authority, dealing with the air power of Germany, rejects the notion that there is no such thing as a military air force in Germany, in spite of the fact that the Allied Governments, through the Military Control Commission, have decided, as far as aviation is concerned, that Germany is disarmed. The writer maintains- that interAllied control is crippled by the fact that, apart from the unexplained tivity in Germany. Dutch, Danish, Italian and Russian establishments under German management are producing aeroplanes for the Reich. Zeppelins are being built in Spain, and the real air power of Germany is an unknown ' quantity.' .In theory every machine built in Germany is registered-and every airman's name is shown upon an official list, which can beconsulteri by the control authority. My informant, however, is convinced that the number of trained airmen is much greater than appears from the official statistics (346 in 1924), and t ( hat the force of airmen is being built up in much the same way as military instruction is given to volunteers. Young men learn to fly in commercial aerodromes and disappear—ostensibly into ordinary occupations. The German authorities contend that the names of youths who simply fly aeroplanes over aerodromes need not be given in the list of professional airmen because they take to the air purely for sporting purposes. At least one company is trading as a purely commercial air transport undertaking and trains its airmen at its own expense. The Reich and the Federal States arc large shareholders in the variousi "air ports" which are springing up throughout Germany, and the author of the report declares that this aniounts to State subsidisation of aviation which, although hardly disguised-, cannot be prevented because tho Treaty of Versailles makes no provision for such action.