In the Air.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 March 1918, Page 6

In the Air.

THE AERIAL BABBAGE,

WHEN THE AIRMAN ME ST TAKE

HIS CHANCE.

The anti-aircraft barrage is to-day the most dreaded enemy weapon that the airman has to face in his flights over the lines. In the midst of a sea* of bursting shells the airplane bobs up and down like a ship in a violent storm The concussion which the shells make in bursting produce a swift succession of air pockets and air bumps and it is absolutely impossible to keep a machine steady through them. Meanwhile there is the strain of knowing always that the next instant one of the thousands of flying shell splintery may reach a vital spot in either machine Or pilot. HAVE TO FLY THROUGH. Yet it is not possible to avoid flying through' 5 barrage at times. The latest type of anti-aircraft guns can place a barrage as high as 23,0()0 feet, ana it is not practical to turn about and try to climb over the barrage. It takes a very highly specialised scout machine to climb to twenty-three thousand feet, and the heavier machines cannot achieve that adtitud.o under any circumstances. The longer the airman hesitates to run the barrage the longer he is exposed to the fire. Anti-aircraft gunnery at the front has now reached a point where the range is calculated to a nicety, almost instantaneously by processes of triangulation, and therefore the flyer who hesitates is lost. The only thing he can do is to take his chance, just as a ship at sea takes a storm and accepts its chances of weathering the gale. SHELL IN CLUSTERS. Next to the barrage the most feared of the ground defences is the “cluster.” This is a group of six anti-air-craft shells, sent up together and placed just ahead of the machine, with one shell aimed to burst the tip of the fuselage, two on each side of it, two on each side just ahead, and one farther and directly ahead. The side-slip is the favourite protection against these “clusters. ” The anti-aircraft gunners get their range nowadays so accurately that the slightest move out of range is fairly certain to get the machine out of danger’s way unless the gunners anticipated this move as they sometimes do, by placing another at the most likely spot fer an expected side-slip.

The side-slip is produced by tipping the plane down slightly and, while flying ahead, slithering over sideways and down, thus changing the range without seeming to do so ; for the gunn'T, looking up, secs as much of the lhaeliinC as before and is a little to one side and several hundred feet lower as the result of his skilful side-slip. Below a height of 5000 ft. anti-air-craft guns cannot be used to advantage, but machine-guns and rifles provide equally • dangerous enemies. A machine-gun playing a stream of 500 bullets a minute is no mean foe, even though the bullets are not explosive.