FLYING "TANKS.-"

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14650, 2 March 1918, Page 3

FLYING "TANKS.-"

A French Deputy is reported to have declared recently: "We must build flying 'tanks.' " The war has-seen many remarkable developments iii the art of destruction, notably the famous tanks, but'a tank with wings would be • the strangest of all. As a matter of fact, what the French legislator j who is also something of an expert in aeronautics, really wants, are armoured aeroplanes which would in a measure take the place in the air that the tanks .occupy un Jand. He contends-that the majority of aircraft constructors are blind to everything but speed and ever greater .•ipeed, ami only build fast,, and tnereiore light machines. He argues that a machine designed lor taccicai work, .jnould. be armoured, and must therefore, be heavy. ."The armoured aerone states, "already existed in| j.yi-i, and even earlier than that. The' necessity for this type- of machine had) been lureseen even in that remote <: epoch, and yet it has been suffered! ■ gradually to vanish out of existence, i r.iiie result is that during an attack .our .pilots are required to hy for hours at a time at a height of a couple of hundred' feet or less over the enemy's trenches, bristling with machine-guns, iuicl tins on macniaes wincn are absolutely unprotected against this pointblank fire." He says that the Germans already have flying "tanks." For several months the Germans have been using aeroplanes of the so-called Junker type. They are built of metal throughout, and every vital part, including.the motor and fuselage, is protected by bullet-proof armour. They can thus deluge with bullets our poiverless mtantry and with impunity." He concludes: —"Whoever knows the powerful moral effect on soldiers in the trenches of the pilot and his machine, of its roaring motor and its crackling ma-chine-gun, will recognise the imperative necessity for restoring to our air service a> weapon .which it was the tirst to possess, «vnd of"which it .should never have been deprived. When next we E attack, our airmen ought to be abie, so to speak, to lead their comrades on foot by the"hand." •