AIR MASTERY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11949, 7 March 1917, Page 4

AIR MASTERY.

WE MUST HAVE THE BEST

MACHINES,

fIK. MASSAC BUIST, the Engineering Expert, in " Daily Mail.")

We have seen enough of this campaign to be awaro that it is both an engineers' war and a ding-dong race for equipment.

.No one belligerent nation can enjoy for more than a brief interval any advantage from the introduction of a new weapon or tiie possession of a Superior type of fam»iiar one.

if Germany has a better aircraft engine tnan ourselves to-day it is merely a question of time before wti bring one to earth and analyse it.

JNovv that the local comma ad of the air means so much to an array, aerial activities cannot be confined merely to manoeuvring at the altitudes from which the terrain below can be observed effectively. it pays the enemy handsomely to endeavour to prevent your attaining that object, even as it is essential for you to prevent his doing so. Therefore you must perforce possess yourself of machines capable of engaging him in aerial combat. That, not observing, is the work which will determine the- limit of the height at which military airmen will have to fly. To-day we know quite well the heights at which we can observe usefully, but we have no idea concerning the ultimate heights at which we shall have to light in the" air.

A British Government of a non-party character, chiefly composed of business men, has come into office at the very time when these problems have become so urgent as to brook delay no longer. It is idle having t-lie iinest flying personnel in the world if we give iS machines which are not equal, far less superior, to the enemy's. It is of little account having manufacturing resources greater than the enemy's if we do not get from those resources a bigger output, than the enemy does from his. Nor is it any use getting youn yield of engines or of aircraft after the given types have ceased to be needed at the front. That, in brief, is the sort of tangle, the new Government is about to unravel in connection with the air services for it menus settling this problem and rendering it no longer needful for the men at the front to come home periodically and "hustle" equipment.

EXCOURAG EMEXT, NOT COMPULSION.

The work of co-ordination must be thorough, yet there must be no excess of zeal. For instance, whether tho Air Board's powers are to be enlarged so that it will be given charge of tho whole affair, or whether the equipment side is to he handed over to tho Ministry of Munitions, which ha.s always controlled labour and materials, tho men who have to do the fighting and observing in the air must have much more to do with determining the type of future equipment. They know what the enemy accomplishes from time to time, hence the need for a Central Department at home to make tho quickest possible use of that information, and to announce our changing requirements to. instead of concealing them from, the native industry, that the whole designing talent of the conn try may be concentrated on solving the problem of the gven hoar. Thus if tho Air Board were given the power, or were to delegate it to the Ministry of Munitions, it were idle for it to establish its own designing start, no matter how excellent the personnel. Adastral HoVise .already has a designing staff; the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough had one from the outset until its ineffectiveness was established. The nation wants all the brains in the country to be focused on solving these''' problems, not a few merely. Secondly, whichever Government Department is. given control of aircraft supply must co-ordinate with the Department concerned with labour and machinery and supplies of raw materials. T can trace half the unsatisfactoriness of output to-day to delays caused by tardy delivery of materials and of minor details of aircraft engine equipment whereby factory output is held back.

Thirdly, various factory methods of keeping cheek of outwit and eliminating causes of delay should he collated alike in this country, America and the Continent, and the best system evolved therefrom with the approval of the leading British motor manufacturers concerned. That system should be standardised in all their works. Marvels could be achieved that way.

Fourthly, as to the placing of orders. To encourage original effort it is not imperative that a given necessary product should bo either invariably or wholly made by the firm that evolved it. It is merely a question'as to what slvvre of the royalties the originating firm will bo allowed to retain, as to whether it is encouraged or not. Of course an Act of Parliament can compel every manufacturer to do both designing and research work. But no Act of Parliament could ensure that the result of tfieh effort would be of the least practical use. Hence the call is for encouragement, not compulsion. Some firms will prove capable of designing four or five successful and necossarv aircraft engine types. But it is idle to give such, n« ha R been done, an order for fifty of one 100 of another, 300 of a third, and so on The only way to get maximum output in a given factory is to set it to work on one iob and ,'Ontinuo uninterrupted!v until the demand for thi l given product is satisfied. NO DILUTION OF LABOUR.

Nor is this all. In the past- we hare never seemed to know when to scrap a given type of equipment. In practice, from the Service point of view, the engine or the aeroplane with which we con dominate the Germans to-day will have become outdated bv Easter; hence we shall want something entirely different by then. But the manufacturing of a modern aircraft engine of high output is a mighty complicated business. If you commence setting out to standardise a new type to-day you will not begin to secure tha first examples of it foi* about three months, and you will not get the factory output up to anything like maximum for another three or four months. Hence the urgency of keeping our motor engineers advised well ahead, and not leave them to. guess what is wanted at the eleventh hour. Another fault to be avoided is that if a new series of engines was evolved last summer and orders have been placed for it, and if a better series of engines has been evolved now, according to the old regime six or eight, months would have to go by before the newest type was ordered in quantities. Of course our -airmen require that not an instant's delay should occur between the discovery of a superior design and the laying it down in the biggest possible quantities. Give it to half a dozen factories at once if need loe. The fliers know the folly of introducing just a few examples to discover " whether they are any good," whereby the enemy probably secures an example of such a novelty and is able to pick oat its points practically as soon as our manufacturers aro ready to turn it out in quantities. j The problem here-is that you cannot!

wait month after month while a quantity of engines of a new type are being "hoarded." The enemy is constantly improving his aircraft equipment,, too. Therefore, when something really worth while is evolved the only way is to put the maximum number of motor manufacturers on to producing it. Above all, there must be an end of the era in which men who have nothing to do with actual flying and fighting in the air at the front, or with tho practical manufacturing of aircraft) equipment at home, are allowed to go on muddling titrso matters according both to the" experience and to tha knowledge which they lack. Lastly, there must be no more dilution of" labour in aircraft engine factories, nor drawing away of semi-skilled labour. This process has now readied such a pitch that the quality of workmanship is being affected, Ncr is there any t.ime to spoil machinery in trailing new drafts of' unskilled workers. A man who was semi-skilled a year or two ago is something of an expert todav.