BRITAIN’S POWER IN THE AIR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20674, 12 March 1937, Page 11

BRITAIN’S POWER IN THE AIR

EXPANSION OF AIR FORCE (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, February 2 Secrets of Royal Air Force expansion were revealed by Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for the Coordination of Defence, to members of the House of Commons last week. Replying to criticisms that the “1935” programme, under which 124 squadrons were to comprise the Metropolitan Air Force, was seriously in delay he reminded his listeners that the "1936” programme of vastly greater scope had “absorbed" the earlier scheme.- “The present position," he said, “is that 87 squadrons have now been formed—l 3 of them are still on the one-flight basis. The method of forming a new squadron is to hive off, as it were, a flight, and gradually to add men and aircraft to that new squadron so as to bring it up in due course to its proper complement.

“Others of these 87 squadrons are over-strength in personnel, with a sufficient number of aircraft for training purposes. It is anticipated that 100 squadrons will have been formed by the end of March. Of these 100 squadrons, 22 will be on a one-flight basis, in the process of being developed into fully equipped and manned squadrons. I- am going to take the risk of saying that the remaining 24 squadrons or, at any rate, 20 of them, will be completed by July next.” The Minister explained that the need to send 12 squadrons to the Mediterranean and the Aden Command to reinforce units sttaioned there was a further obstacle to rapid completion of the programme. An even more important reason followed inevitably from the ambitious nature of the expansion scheme; the Minister stated: “In the normal way the number of flying training schools would have been much less than they are. There are eleven, employing a large number of personnel and aircraft. The suggestion has been made that the numbers should be reduced. It would be literally fatal to reduce the number or the standard of instructors and turn out young men with insufficient training. Our airmen are second to none in the world and our young men seem to have a natural capacity and genius for tile air. They ought to enjoy, at any rate, that which it is our duty to give them; the best and longest training- that Is possible. I believe the House will approve the decision of the Secretary of State for Air in maintaining the flying training schools and the personnel and aircraft which are necessary at their full number, even at the expense of not being able to form squadrons with the men and the aircraft which are being used in this way.” Efficient Warplanes Sir Thomas Inskip said that the Government might have taken the “rosy path” of ordering old types of machines. On the contrary they had ordered new and modern types, and had strained to the utmost the ability of the aircraft manufacturers to produce novel machines. (Known facts about the astonishing performances of the new British fighting and bombing aircraft prove sufficiently the Government’s wisdom in adopting the more difficult method of re-equipment.) He dealt faithfully with the suggestion put forward in some quarters that foreign aircraft might be purchased. He said: “It has been considered most carefully and fully. But the fact is that the delay in obtaining foreign machines, or the time in which they could be obtained, would be longer than the time in which they could be obtained by using our own resources, and the complications due to difference in the accessories, in the equipment of machines, would be a serious handicap to the efficiency of our squadrons, and in wartime—l will not say would paralyse a particular squadron—but would gravely affect its efficiency.” Point is given to the Minister’s remarks by the American official statement that in the first nine months of 1936 the American aircraft industry produced 573 mil.tary aeroplanes, or at the rate of less than 800 for the whole year. Comments “U.S. Air Services,” leading American aeronautical magazine: “After deciding we need some 1200 military aeroplanes a year, we get less than 800. This, in the United States, where we thought we had aircraft plant capacity capable of producing machines as fast as we needed them. . . .

“So when someone whispers that Great Britain has purchased 300 military aeroplanes from ji small Canadian branch of one of our foremost American manufacturers—3oo aeroplanes, about half our entire yearly outpuGdon’t knock children over in your wild rush to buy that company’s stock; that is, don't buy solely on the basis of that rumour. We ought to be busy on our own orders this year.” Gun-Turreted Fighter. Improved accuracy of fire at the terrific speeds reached in combat between modern aeroplanes is sought in use of a new kind of mechanically operated gun turret which is undergoing tests at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Station of the Royal Air Force. The turret is fitted in the space normally occupied by the rear cockpit of a Hawker Demon two-seat fighter, and is the first to be fitted in this kind of machine. It enables the gunner to swing his gun rapidly and easily in all conditions of flight, no matter what the speed and attitude of the aeroplane. A much higher degree of fire accuracy than is possible from an unprotected cockpit is thereby achieved. Turrets are rapidly becoming standard equipment of many types of warplane. The first machine in the Service to have turrets was the BoultonPaul Overstrand, a twin-engined medium bomber which has a turret in the extreme nose of the fuselage. Experience with the apparatus in the Overstrand has proved conclusively that it greatly augments the fighting efficiency of the aircraft, enabling the gunner to keep the gun-sights trained on the adversary even when he is flying at high speed directly across the field of fire and to work without the enormous fatigue of moving the gun against air pressure. Now many of the new bombers ordered in large numbers for the Royal Air Force have gun-turrets, some of them turning on a vertical axis, as in the Overstrand and the Demon, anfl some horizontally, as in the Vickers Wellington twin-engined “geodetic” bomber.