NOTHING STARTLING.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 30, 5 February 1916, Page 3

NOTHING STARTLING.

In no direction, apparently, has the war provoked the unexpected in aircraft design. The Zeppelins show just the capabilities that IS months ago we 'knew they possessed. The accounts of a new large two-engined German aeroplane, if true, show that the enemy are still at work on craft that were certainly being built more than a year ago. The war has.increased a hundredfold the output of machines, and is now insisting upon big' load-carriers .and quick climbers, and machines with composite power plant. But none of these things has been created by the war; they were being built more than a year ago, and this is true even of the latest and the greatest British machines, which, however, must not be described. The enemy, so far as it is possible to know, are in the same position; they have made no sensational discoveries. The discarding of the light monoplane, the dislike of the rotary motor and the use of stationary waterc.i.cled engines attributed by special cerrespondents to Germany's new-won uar experience, and apparently intended to frighten us, were all in operation before the war. It is still an open question which side will be first in Ihe field with squadrons of suporaer.ip': i.es.