Precision in Show Attack

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 160, 24 July 1937, Page 15

Precision in Show Attack

' ^URING THE WAR comparatively little use was made of aircraft for work with the Fleet in the North Sea, says "Taffrail" in the London Observer. "Flying off" and "landing on" -were still in their infancy at the time of the Armistdce, and the modern aircraft-carrier is e'ssentially a poet-war development. Indeed, the Ark Royal, launehed at Birkenhead recently and due for completion in 1938, is the first British aircraft-carrier specially designed as such, and the first to.embody all that has been learnt as the result ' of over edghteen years intensive work on the part of what is now known as the Fleet Air Arm. The Hlustrioue and Vietorious, of laist year's programme, to be built at Bar-row-in-Furness and Walker-on-Tyne, should be ready for sea during 1939. Two more carriers were authorised in this year 's programme presented to Parliament in February. It seems that all these five new ships will be round about 23,000 tons, and that each will be able to carry fcome seventy aircraft. Our present carriers, which may be considered as more or less experimental, are all old ships, though still useful for their purpose. The 22,500 ton Courageous and Glorious, with their forty-eigbt aircraft, and the Curious, with thirtythree, were completed as cruasers in 1917 and afterwards converted. The Eagle, now being equipped to carry eighteen torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance machines for service in China, was laid down as a battleship befor© the war, and finally completed as a cairier in 1923, after many experiments and considerable modification. The smallcr Hermes, of 10,850 tons, now servang in China with fifteen air-' craft, was laid down in 1918 and completed five years later; while the Argus, 14,450 tons, was started as a Hner in 1914, purchased in 1916, and completed as a earrier just before hoetilities ceased. She is now being fitted out as an operating ship for "Queen Bee" pilotless wireless-controlled aeroplanes for tranning the Fleet in anti-aircraft gunnery. Bather more than thirty aircraft of varying types are also carried on catapulta provided in battleships, bat-tle-cruisers, and cruisers at home and abroad. Aircraft will form part of the normal equipment of all future ships over & certain size. Most people have some idea of the outward appearance of an aircraft earrier. The Furious, with her nearly 800 ft. of length, her flush flight deck 75ft. above the waterline, and the smoke being diseharged from the end of it, looks for all the world like a row of warehouses. The Courageous, Glorious^ Eagle, and Hermes are more like ships, though, seen end on, it will be noticed that their superstructures, funnels, and

masts are perched on the extreme atar» board edge of the flight deck. ' The superstrucfcure, or "island," contains the navigating bridge, chart house, sea cabins, meteorological office, and so forth. Imagine yourself looking down from the bridge, and yuu see, stretching forward and aft, the flat steel flight deck marked with its broad, white guiding lines. In the Courageous it is 600ft. long and 108ft. wide, with an area of, roughly, two acres. If figures convey little to the imagiuation, the usual hockey ground is 300ft. by. 180ft. Conveniently placed in this sxpanss are the two hydraulic 3if ts for bringing the aircraft on deck from their hangars below; but imaginevfor the time, that nine torpedo-bombers are alreaay massed on the after end of the flight deck with their engines running, and a eouple of mechanics lying prone under each, holding the chocks to retadn the wheels. The ship, meanwhile, is eteaming head to wind at a speed suffieient produce a wind speed of about 30 miles an hour.The Wing-Corumander takes his place on a little platform on ihe side of the bridge o-verlooking the scene. |He drops a handflag, and the engine of the flrst aeroplane breaks into a dcafening roar. The chocks are withdrawn, and she starts to move— -faBter and faeter. Her wheels are off the deck and spinning almottt before she swishes past the bridge. She shoota on ahead, passes overjthe bows of the ship, tilts over on one wihg, and, rising, eircles round to take station astern. She is followed by one machine after another, until the nine of them are in the air and in f ormation. The sheer preciaJbn of ihe operation ia beautiful to watch. i ' A dummy torpedo attack on. the^carrier follows, with the nine comihg down from far ahead in three groups of three and diving down to within twenty feet of the water to releaae their mythical torpedoes. The earrier increases speed and alters course to dodge#them. When all the nine have attacked, the ship agaxn steams straight into the wind's eye, and one after the other the machines are signalled to land on. It ia surprising, again, to see ihe perfect ac-. curacy with which they alight and the ' short distance in which they are brought to" a etandstill, to be manhandled by, the deck landing party and trundled aft to the lift, down which they disappear to the hangar below. One is assured by the pilots themselves that the whole operation is de-: ligHtfully easy and simple. To the ordinary onlooker it looks surprisingly difficult and dangerous. Anyhow, it takes long and eonstant practice to make a successful Fleet Air Arm pilot. In partaeular, landing on may be a tickUsh job in bad weather, with theleast motion on the earrier. Later, a dozen or more flghter airj craft, each carrying four small bombs and 250 rounds of ammunition for their light machine guns, aTe. massed on the after end of the flight deck. They, too, are flown off, presently to form an endless chain and to ddve down one by one to drop their bombs and fire their guns at a target towed by their parent sbip. The fighters fly on again, bringing up practically on the foremost liff, and promptly idisappearing below. The record in this respect, I was informed on one occasion, was six fighters landed and sent below in, 4 minutes 26 seconds.