IMMENSE SUM for British Air Force

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 51, 16 March 1937, Page 5

IMMENSE SUM for British Air Force

f British Official Wireless.)

£82,500,000 Will Train 1175 Pilots This Year DOMINION CO-OPERATION

(Received 16, 12.55 p.m.) RUGrBY, March 15. The largest Air Esimates ever presented to Parliament were introduced in the House of Commons by Sir Philip Sassoon. The net Estimates, £82,500,000 including loan provision, compares with an average figure of some £18,000,000 asked for by the Minister in pre-expansion years. It shows an increase of nearly £32,000,000 on the total estimates of 1936. During the coaaing financial year they intend to train 1175 pilots, said Sir Philip. Tho position with regard to airmen was equally satisfactory. During 1936 they planned to recruit over ! 1,000 airmen, including 2656 appren tices and boy entrants. The present figures indicated that hopes would be fully realised. They hoped to recruit a slightly larger number during the coming year. Eeferring to Dominion co-opemtion, Sir Philip said there was in operation a scheme whereby pilots were trained as cadets in the Royal Australian Air Force and then served terms with the Air Force in this country; afterwards they reverted the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve. New Zealand was establi6hing similar schemes and also a system whereby candidates who applied for the Royal Air Force would be medically examined locally. The Govovnment would welcome the adoption of a similar system in Canada from which Dominion no fewer than one hundred young men had come on their own and had been accepted for short-service commissions. Except for the larger aircraft of the Fleet air arai, the monoplane, which npproached most nearly to the ideal etreamline form,. had almost entirely replaced the biplane. The striking power of the new types far surpassed that of the corresponding types of two vears ago. Active research and development were continually in progress with a view to obtaining machines of even greater speed, range and load capacity. Satisfactory progress is being made with the erection of factories both for the production of airframes and aero engines and a careful review is being made of the requirements for raw materials, of which there will be a risk of shortage in time of war. Arrangements have already been made for the purchasing of reserve stocks of certain •sssential products. Provision is being made for obtaining adequate reserves of petrol and for storing them in places least accessible to air attack. During a rambling debate Mr. Montague (Labour) said that the people would fight in the country *s defence but not for mandates. The common people of Britain would not murder even Germans wholesale for the sako of a splash of tropical red.