AERIAL WARFARE.

Shannon News, 2 November 1923, Page 3

AERIAL WARFARE.

BEST EQUIPPED NATION,

If the next war is fought in the air, as some close students of military itaptics have predicted, France will be (the best-equipped nation in the world for -successful warfare, according to Glenn H. Curtiss, the.pioneer American aviator, who recently visited England. The United States and Great Britain, Curtiss declared, are lagging woefully, and .apparently have failed to-grasp the importance of’'air development. :

Aviation, lie asserted, is still in its infancy, and the Governments of the world have hardly realised the possibilities of its development. > “The one Government that has realised it is France,” Curtiss said. “Wherever you go you will find a French air mission and flying- schools staffed with French air officers, not only in Europe, but in South America, too. The French are great believers in the future of the air.”

The United States, Curtiss contended, is paying greater attention to the commercial development of aviation, rather than, to its military possibilities. Great : Britain is forgetting the possibilities of air fleets in her anxiety to maintain her naval supremacy. “I am the last person to wish to lecture Great Britain,” Ciirtiss went on, “and I suppose the British Admiralty thinks the ten million pounds it is spending in building a naval base at Singapore is good business, but 'a tenth of that amount expended on aviation and research .work, and in keeping up aerial development and evolving the very best type of machine, ought to be good business, tod. The more development work you do the more feeders you will build up ’for a big national air service. If the war has taught one lesson, it is that so long as you have an efficient skeleton organisation you can build up vast air fleets very quickly. “But the thing to do is to have your skeleton organisation efficient.Attend tp the development side of aviation and your defence scheme will look after itself when the time comes. Money |spent on development is the best possible investment for national air defence.”