IN THE AIR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 22 August 1917, Page 2

IN THE AIR.

The Huu method of carrying out a daylight “formation raid,” as shown on the last three occasions, suggests some interesting comparisons between hi flying service and those of the Allies. The two parties are radically different (wrote a British airman in in the London Daily Telegraph), the cause lying probably in the nature of the Hun pilot. [Whatever his earoplane designers may do for him he remains strangely unenterprising. You have a large formation of machines —a plan copied from the Allies —but at least 18 months after them. Instead of the human element, the swoop down to 1000 ft or 500 ft, commonly employed by the Allies to ensure direct hits, you have a hurried attack from an enormous -height with reliance for accurate shooting in bomb sights, which are not and never can be reliable. One can just imagine the Huu sitting up there at 15,000 ft or 18,000 ft, stop-watch and lever ready, his eye glued to the sights.. One can imagine him pulling the lever and feeling sure something “frightful must have happened. But that is not how Allied raids are done, nor hoW aerial success is gained. One sentence will illuminate ; ‘the whole. After one highly successful Allied excursion, where real military objects anC not merely “moral” ones were achieved, I heard a British pilot say, “Did you see your bomb sight. I tried to use mine, but did not feel confident, so I just came down to 500 ft and looked down between my legs and pulled. It hit alright!” Had Folkestone Harbour been hit in the first of thesC raids no doubt the result would have been of “military value,” but it was not, and it was not likely to be from that height —we do not know how r many machines tried for it, but none of the 15 sent out brought it off. The same language seems to apply to the .other raids.

We know what advertisement these Hun raids will receive at home, but compare the almost, sometimes entirely, unmentioned |“shows” which have at times been a daily feature of Allied attack. They are carried much farther across the lines, and they scarcely ever fail to bring about the total demoltion of some object, the loss of which is of serious account to the Hun. The casualties among the Allied pilots are heavy, but the results are obtained. In these raids the Hun has, as usual, endeavoured, to obtain results without taking risks. In air work the two are incompatible—and he has had the casualties just the same. The truth of the matter is that the Hun pilot is a “hero” whom a certain amount of time automatically covers with medals. Despite the fact that Allied flying has been the key of all Hun failure right through the war, he never seems to have got away form this idea that his pilots are “heroes” who are already doing more than could have been expected. I The point of view of the Allies is strikingly the opposite. They have not yet begun to envisage the ulti- ‘ mate uses of the aeroplane. For one thing, Allied audacity is continually suggesting new possibilities.