French Air Power.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 September 1922, Page 4

French Air Power.

EXAMPLE TO BRITAIN. PARIS, July 20. Air power in its latest, grimmest, most deadly form—that is what I saw this morning at Longchamp racecourse when President Millerand, reviewing the Paris garrison, reviewed also Hie cream of the French post-war aerial forces.

It was a great aerial object lesson in that vital campaign of The Daily Mail to awaken Britain—and more especially British officialdom—to the air peril, not as it was in the war, a mere warning, blit as it will he tomorrow.

We know nothing yet of tne real terrors of scientific air war. Agileminded Fiieiiiilinien have* .grasped them firmly. It was tlie keynote of the spectacle wc watched this nu riling, when there swept past above tiio President squadron after squadron of the gy'ea't bn,ttb/-pJancs.—alie- last thing in ’Krone’ll air design—winch now undertake with tho land forte? the protection of Paris. These machines do not take bacit to the war, such as those our B'ofish pilots have mainly to he content with, fleeing what air power ought to lie and armed with funds even in Jays of dire poverty, the French aviation ?> rvico is living in a vivid present and looking far ahead. PERFECTLY TIMED.

The scheme of this morning's review was this: Gathered at convenient aerodromes, such as Toiissu-loNoblc. ;Ll,e Bourfot .and Villacouhlay, some 50 aeroplanes came together near Longchamp perfectly timed and smoothly executed, and each machine took up position with the ease of a battalion. At one moment wherever one looked there flew these menacing machines. Even- now and then the. leaders signalled to each other by flares dropped from beneath the aeroplanes’ bulls and gleaming vividly even m tlie daylight. , it is not permitted to describe the latest secrets of French air power, hut to one whose business is to know, certain things were evident. Avoiding technicalities, one may say that the machines .... review to-day embody evervthing French air science learned in the. war and has discovered since.

They can now do things no war machine could. In sheer speed, in climbing power, in the dead-weight of missiles tho bombing ’planes can carry, French aeroplanes are breaking re-

cords daily. 1 TACTICAL ADVANTAGE. Olio heard this morning confirmation of reports that had reached London technical circles of the marvellous work the French are doing in designing lighting aeroplanes to ascend to oven greater heights than hitherto. They (tin thus secure the tactical advantage over any adversary who fails

to keep pace in the race for altitude. These machines gain their abnormal soaring power by work upon their motors that enables them to maintain power in tho thin upper air, and also by wonderfully delicate. mechanism which permits the propeller to preserve its efficiency even at a. tre-

mendous height. I thanked my stars that these terrible. machines I saw were controlled bv friends and not foes. The writing is not now on the wall; it is in the air. where tbe Daily .Mail aeroplanes have been writing it- it was in the air. too, at l.ongcliamp this morning. AVoe betide Britain if she reiuses to

One could not do better than repeat the words of a Frenchman altei witnessing this review of France s air power: “Does one grudge Hie money he asked. “Emphatically No. It is a national insurance. And wo buy it more cheaply in Hiis way than in any other.”