ROYAL AIR FORCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 711, 11 December 1933, Page 5

ROYAL AIR FORCE

efficient administration makes it an economical arm LATEST REPORT London, October 13. Reduction in ten years by approximately one-half of the cost of maintaining in service each first-line aeroplane in the Royal Air Force is rightly regarded as highly creditable by the Select Committee on Estimates. The figure talces no account of the increase in the number of aeroplanes which fly throughout the year for purposes of training, experiment, and research, and. so f orth. The comparison, pursued further, wonld, therefore, indicate even' more strongly, the savings secured by improvements in the design and construction of British aeroplanes, resulting in unrivalled , trustworthiness and endurance, and by the tireless effici'ency with which the Air Ministry conducts its adjustments of the service. In 1923 the number of R.A.F. personnel needed to keep each aeroplane in the air was 90. To-day 43 are{ ample. Ten years ago each first-line machine cost £44,000 a year — a figure obtained by dividing the total provision in Estimates (less the Civil Aviation votes) by the strength of first-line aircraft, which is described as the number of machines maintained in operational units; the present figure is £22,500, or, if non-regular units of the (R.A.F. be included, less than £20,000. Students of fighting forces will recognise in these figures powerful evidence of the economy of the warplane, compared with warships and army units.