TRANSPORT OF WAR TROOPS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20044, 6 September 1920, Page 6

TRANSPORT OF WAR TROOPS.

I NEW FIELD FOR THE AEROPLANE A Belgian writer on aviation, says “ The’ Times,” recently discussed the place that the big aeroplane will hold in the next war, but his dissertation was of uncommon interest, because he reconstructed. the offensive plan, as it was demonstrated in the late war, in terms of air power. He began by presupposing that by the time the world is once again overtaken, by a groat European upheaval the aeroplane will have developed giant proportions, and will be capable of carrying at least fifty passengers—not so fantastic a vision when wo recall what have- been the strides in the increase in the carrying capacity of heavior-than-air craft in (ho last few years. In 1911, as to-day, it was' on motor transport that the army in tho field relied for tho carrying of men over wide tracts of country, and the writer reminded us that at the beginning of tho war Franco had 36.000 motor vehicles for this purpose, and tour years later three times that number. In November, 1918, motor transport effected the carriage of 950,000 meiu These figures, remarkable enough as statistics relating to I ground transport, compare ill with what we may expect to be done in an age I when the air transport of battalions of men is not a fantasy, but an actuality. It might reasonably be assumed that a Power at the time of going, to war would have at its disposal' 10,000 of these monster aeroplanes devoted hitherto to commercial nSes—not an excessive number for tb© civil aviation requirements of a first-class Power. The speed of the machines is placed at 110 kilometres an hour. F<?r 2i ronchir.l Coughs, t&U Weeds’ Great Peppermint Cute, Is fid, 2s 3d,