AVIATION IN JAPAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 226, 30 January 1911, Page 3

AVIATION IN JAPAN.

700 INVENTORS OBTAIN PATENTS.

ARMY TESTING FOREIGN MACHINES.

Japanese Government officials are pursuing a decidedly active policy'with regard to flying, but their Press campaign has consisted chiefly of refraining from rushing into print and expatiating upon it.

Ever since the aeroplane began to be taken seriously the aviating world has asked itself what Japan seemed to be [doing in aeronautics. ! Even now so little is known that Japan appears to be the one great unknown factor in the problem of military aviation. It seems unthinkable that the Japanese could neglect such an important agency of securing strategical information and for tactical movements. However, if there is one thing that characterises the Japanese people more than their ingenuity and resourcefulness, their ability to ma'ke good use of the latest appliances, it is their ability to keep their own counsel about their activities. The Japanese are past-masters in the art of confronting their rivals and antagonists with the accomplished fact. Nevertheless, some of the work done by the Japanese is known to the outside world,. The latest report from Tokio is to the effect that 7UO patents have been registered for living machines. Among i the rest, the device patented by Baron Iga stands out as something unique, it being capable, so its inventor asserts, of sustaining itself in the air without moving forward. It is modelled after the

dragon fly, and is distinguished by two pairs of wings, arranged on the same level, but separately, and constructed so that they can be moved up and down, with a motion somewhat like the flapping of the wings of a bird, at the will of the aeronaut.

The military authorities of the Empire, however, are not placing their reliance altogether in the planes and other appliances devised by their countrymen. Early last year the Japanese Government was reported to have purchased 27 hiplanes of the Wright model from the firm that is manufacturing those machines in Germany. These machines evidently are to be made the nucleus of the aviation corps, for the officers who are to manipulate them and impart the secrets of their operation to other officers and enlisted men are receiving instruction from the company's experts. About half-a-dozen Japanese army captains are now in Germany undergoing a process of training.

There are those who believe that after an initial expenditure on foreign aeroplanes the Japanese will not invest heavily in them. They expect that the same policy that has been followed with regard to other products will be pursued by the Japanese, that of buying'samples and copying them. This should not prove a, particularly difficult feat for a people who already have 700 registered patents on aircraft to their credit. It is natural that the Japanese should map out for themselves an ambitious programme in military aviation, and it is likewise natural for them to do 50 without tlie world in general gaining more than a nebulous idea of what they arc about.

Japan carefully masked all her progress in modern artillery up to the Rus-1 sian war. More secrecy than that with which maritime Powers are usually able to veil their operations invested Japan's policy regarding submarines before and during the war with Russia, but officers of Admiral Rodjesventski's fleet declare solemnly, and with such conviction that they convince others, that in the battle of the Sea of Japan their Baltic fleet was destroyed by Japanese submarines.