INCREASE IN POWER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 257, 29 October 1937, Page 5

INCREASE IN POWER

FRENCH AIR FORCE The claim that the offensive power of the French Air Force has been increased by 500 per cent, since June, 1936, is made by M. Delattre, a member of the Chamber Air Committee, writing in the Oeuvre, says the Daily Telegraph. He vigorously answers the criticism based mainly on the French defeat in the recent Istres-Damascus-Paris air race by Italian machines, that French aviation is decadent. The French Air Force, he says, is second to none in the world. The fact that the Italian machines took the first three places, while the leading French machine was only fifth, gives no indication, he adds, of the comparative power of the machines actually in service in the French and Italian Air Forces. “The Italian machines were built solely to enhance the prestige of Italy and her leader,” he writes. “They had no qualities which our General Staff insists on and our technicians provide. “To begin with, they were threeengined machines, and the French General Staff has always rejected three-engined machines, for they are extremely vulnerable and useless for the most essential military tasks. “They were machines in which everything, even stability, had been sacrificed for speed* Obviously, a military machine should be stable above all things. “The service bomber in the Italian Air Force is the Savoia 81, which has a speed of 199 miles an hour and carries one ton for 621 miles. “Bombing machines in the service of the French Air Force have a speed of 205 miles an hour and carry li tons 1 for 621 miles. The fighting machines actually in service in the Italian Air Force have a speed of 237 miles an hour, while the corresponding French fighters do 243 miles an hour.”