In the Air

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 17, 23 December 1915, Page 5

In the Air

MONSTER RAIDS IN VIEW. FLEET OF GIANT MACHINES. IMPENDING WESTERN MOVEMENT. BRITAIN'S AERIAL DEVELOPMENT. 500 MACHINES IN SQUADRONS. 17,000 BOMBS; IN TEN MINUTES. FRENCHMEN WILL DO THEIR SHARE.

[EMTED PttKSB ASSOCIATION.] (Received 8.15 a.m.) New York, December 22. Mr George Robinson, representative of Curtis's aeroplanes, has arrived. He states that a fleet of giant aircraft has been built, which is destined to decide the campaign in the west. Great Britain is developing nineteen types, ranging from scouts to battle cruisers, and aerial equipment is growing at a tremendous speed. A visiting aviation officer states : Great raids are impending, which are expected to attain in a single stroke a result equal to practically obliterating fortifications. As worked out in detail, it will call for five hundred giant machines, each carrying 3500 pounds of nitro-celluloise which has.

a terrific destructive power. The aeroplanes will be divided into squadrons of twenty, the battle cruisers carrying bombs, while the-quickfirers will be preceded by two very fast scouts informing the convoy of the conditions ahead. Each squadron will take the air at a pre-arranged signal, flying 6 Omiles an hour. Four will have a minute headway over the following squadron, and the machines will spread out and form a line 1} miles long. Reaching the fortified places, the scouts will give the signal. The battle cruisers will maintain an elevation of three thousand feet, where they are immune from air craft guns. The commanders estimate that not more than ten minutes will lie taken to Ay over the place, and bombs wil! bew-dropped at intervals of forty-five seconds from each succeeding squadron, of which twenty-five will- be employed, which means that a total of seventeen thousand bombs will be dropped. A number of scientific devices have been developed, the chief of which is a bombthrower. When the raids on Krupps and the Kiel Canal are made, the new devices will show their true work. France will share in the raids.