AIR MASTERY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 272, 4 May 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

AIR MASTERY.

(11. M;i«sac Buist, the Engineering .Expert, in the Daily Mail.)

We have teen enough of this campaign to be aware that it is both an engineers war and a ding-dong race for equipment. No one belligerent nation can enjoy for more than a brief interval any advantage from the introduction of a new weapon or the posession of a superior typ:> of familiar one. If Germany ha* a better aircraft engine than ourselves to-day it is merely a question of time before we bring ono to earth and analyse it. Now that the local command of tha air means 60 much to an army, aerial activities cannot be confined merely to manoeuvring at the altitudes from which the terrain below can be observed effectively. , It pays the enemy handsomely to endeavour to prevent your attaining that object, even as it is essential for vou to prevent his doing r>o. 1 herefore" you must perforce posse.-* yourself of machines capable of engaging him in aerial combat. That, not observing, is the work which will determine the limit of the height at which military airmen will have to fly. To-day we know quite well tho heights at which we can observe usefully, but we have no idea concerning the ultimate heights at which we shall have to fight in the air. A British Government of a non-party character, 'chiefly composed of business men, has come into office at the very time when these problems have becomj so urgent as to lirook delay no longer. It is idle having the finest flying personnel in the world if we give it machines which are not equal, far lesd superior, to the enrny's. It is of little account having manufacturing resources greater than the enemy's if we do not get from these resources a bigger output than the enemy does from his. Nor is it any use getting your yield of en•gines or of aircraft after the given tvpes have ceased to be needed at tho front. That, in brief, is the sort of tangle the new Government is about to unravel in connection with the air services, for it means settling this problem and rendering it no longer needful for j the men at the front to come home jicriodically and "hustle" equipment.

EXCOrUAGKMENT, NOT COMPULSION.

The work cf co-ordination must bo thorough, yet there must be no escort of zeal. For instance, whether tho Air Board's powers are to be enlarged so that it will be given charge of tho wholtf affair, or whether the equipment tiide is to lie handed over to the Ministry of Munitions, which had always crutr'oll.d labour and materials, the men who have to do the tighting and observing in the air must have much mora to do with determining the type, of future equipment. They know what tho enemy accomplishes from time to time, hence the need for a Central Department at home to make the quickest jkssible of that information, and to announce our changing requirements to, instead cf concealing them from, tin native industry, that the whole designing talent of the country may bo concentrated 011 solving the problem of the given hour. Thus if the Air Board were given the power, or were to delegat. 1 it to the Ministry of Munitions, it were idle for it to establish its own designing staff, 110 matter how excellent the personnel. Adastral Llnuse already has a designing staff; tho lioyal Aircnft Factory at Farnborough had one from the outset until its ineffectivcihv*) was established. The nation want-) all the brains in the country to bo f< cussed cn solving these problems, not a few merely.

Secondly, whichever Government Department i« given control of aircraft supply mrst co-ordinate with the Department ccncerned with labcur and machinery and supplies of raw materials. I can trace half the unsatisfactoriner>s of output to-day to delay." caused by tardy delivery of materials and of miner details of aircraft engine equipment whereby factory output is held lack.

Thirdly, various factory methods of ke. ping check of output and eliminating cause.-* of delay should be collated alike in this country, America, and the Continent, and the be>-t system evolved therefrom with the approval of the leading Brit'eh motor manufacturers concerned. That system should be stand-ardi-eJ in all their works. ' Marvels could be achieved that way. Fourthly, as to the placing of orders. To encourage original eflort it ir. not imperative that a given necessary produet. should be either invariably or wholly made by the firm that evolved il. It is merely a question as to what fhire of tie royalties the originating firm will be allowed to retain, as to whe'her it is eucouragvd or not. Ot cour-e an Act of Parliament can compel every manufacturer to do both designing and research work. Hut 110 Act <f Parliament could ensure that the r.silt of such effort would be of the !east .'practical iu-e. Ilence the call is for encouragement, not compulsion. .Some firms will prove capable of designing four or five successful and necessary aircraft engine types. But it is idle to give such, as has be< n done, an order of jO of one typo, 10;) of another, :!00 of a third, and so on. 'Hie onlv way to get a maximum output in a given factory is to . i et it to work on one job and continue uninterruptedly until the demand for the given product is sati-fi<d.

NO DILUTION OF I.A150II!

Xor is tliH all. In the pa*t wo have novor seemed to know when to scrap a giveu typo of equipment. In practice, from tho Service point of view, Ihc online of tlw» aeroplane with which wo can dominate the Germans to-day will have become out-dated liy Easter; heme we shall want something entirely different I>v then. But the manufacturing of a modern aircraft engine of hioh cutput i- a mighty complicated l.u iuev. If you commence setting out to standardisj a now type to-day you will begin to MM-ure the first examples of it for about three months, and you will not get the factory output up to anything like maximum fer another three or four month-. Hence the urgency of keeping cur motrr engineer* advsel well ahead, and not leave them to guess what is wanted at the eleventh h'»ur. Another fault to lie avoided is that, if a new series of engine.-, was evolved hist M illiner and order- have been placed for it, and if a better eerie- <f engine* ha* lnvn evolved now. according to tho old regime six or eight months would have to go bv before the newest typo mma ordered in quantities- - . Of conr-o our airmen require that not an in-tant s del.iv t-liou'd occur I etweec the discovery of a superior de-ign and tho laying it down in the biggest possible quantities. (!i"'o it to hiilf a dozen factories at onoo if need In* The flier* know the felly of introducing just a few example) t> di-rovir "whetlur they sre any <jood," wheri bv tho enemy probably secures an example of sarh a novelty and h able to pick out it* point* practically

aa soon as our manufacturer* are ready to turn it out in quantises. The problem hero i* that you cannotwait month after month while a quantity of engines of a new ty[>e are being "hoarded.'' The enemy is constantly improving his aircraft equipment, to, Therefore, when something really worth vliile i,s evolved tlie only way is to put the maximum number of motor manufacturers on to producing it. Alwve all. there mu-t be an end of the era in which men who have nothing to do with actual thing and fighting in the air at the front, or with the practical manufacturing of aircraft equipment at home, are allowed to go on muddling the.-e matters acci rding In th to the experience and to the knowledge which they lack. I.as'ly, th'*re mu->t Iv no more dilution of labour in aircraft engine factories, nor drawing away of i-.mi—killed labour. Th'ri process ha> now leached sucli a pi eh that the quality of workmanship ir. Icing affected. N< r if- thee any time to spoil rra'hinery in training new draft-; of urskilled worker*. A man who was si mi- -killed ye.n 01 two ago rs s m'thing cf an e\j>oii to-day.