ENGLAND READY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 293, 3 May 1913, Page 10

ENGLAND READY

I BEST AREIAL FLEET IN THE i WORLD. REMARKABLE TESTS. London, March 20. Colonel Seely,- speaking on the Army Estimates in the House of Commons, made some highly interesting statements about the progress Great Britain was making in aviation, lie said there was extraordinary misapprehension of England's position, and this was due to two causes. He hoped to remove them. The first cause was that officers engaged in the dangerous business of flying made it a point of honor that they would never allow any of their performances to appear in the press, and consequently some remarkable and important achievements, some of which he would refer to, had passed absolutely unnoticed. The second reason was that in its nature the whole business ought to be highly confidential. If anyone tried to find out what foreign nations were doing in aviation he would find himself confronted with a blank wall.

GROWTH OF THE AIR FLEET. When he introduced the Estimates last year there were engaged in aviation duties 14 officers and 182 men of other ranks. Of the 14 officers 12 were Hying officers. The next step was the formation of a flying corps. Progress has been rapid. To-day, excluding, the navy, the total strength of the Royal Fying Corps was 120 officers. They had 12 flying officers a year ago; they had 123 Hying officers now. They had not yet begun to train many of the 082 men. Eight were qualified flyers, but they had decided at present that officers should lead the way, and an overwhelming majority of those who flew were officers of the corps. Forty-liVe of the officers had passed the flying test, which was much more exacting than that asked for from any other flying officer in any part of the world; 32 had almost finished their course, and the remaining 30 had the Royal Aero Club certificate and were qualified fliers, though they had not yet passed the test. #

DIRIGIBLES NOT WANTED. The army was not in possession of anj' large rigid dirigible ballons, not because they were afraid of expense, but because it had been laid down from the start that the British Army did not require what he might call Zeppelins. Our Army was an expeditionary army, and to use Zeppelins in, say, the reinforcements of Egypt, or sending out a body of men to defend her territory in India, would be obviously impossible. ' These gigantic engines could not be taken there, and if they could, it would be with the utmost difficulty; and the provision of hydrogen would be an almost insoluble difficulty. They had, therefore, decided that the army should have small dirigibles, which could be packed up and sent away wherever they had to go. They had got exactly what they meant to have. They possessed three, and they were superior to any other form of portable dirigible. The army had no intention of embarking upon a policy of large rigid balloons, for they could not see that this would be wise expenditure. The main division between the army and navy 111 aviation was that the navy would take lighter than air machines, and the army those that were heavier than air. The navy should take airships. He excluded hydroplanes in his suggestion and army aeroplanes. They proposed to have ultimately seven aeroplane squadrons, with 18 aeroplanes to each squadron. Last year they had in the possession of the country 17 aeroplanes capable of flying, and now that he. looked back on the things said in the public press in the last few weeks, it had been with difficulty that he had restricted himself from explaining the extraordinary mistakes into which the critics had fallen. If there were no delay in supply they would have by .May 1 148 aeroplanes.

GERMANY AT A DISCOUNT. It might be asked how this compared with other countries. If they were to take aeroplanes in the same way as they took the artillery part of the army, they had in proportion enough excess over any foreign Power, and four times as many in proportion as Germany. Beyond that, he was going to make a bold statement, and say that we had got the best aeroplanes in the world. They had evolved a type far superior to that in the possession any other nation. The great problem of aeroplanes for the purposes of war, and especially of this country, was to have an aeroplane which would Hy at great speed, and also which wouhl lly at a low speed. The second was even more important than the first. This country had gone nearer the solution of that problem than any other nation, and fa>r nearer than was thought to be possible six months ago. We were now in possession of a machine which the day before was flying at over 80 miles an hour, and which could lly at 40 miles per hour. There was also a machine which has just completed its tests, a biplane, which in a series of four tests averaged 91.4 miles an hour, flying backwards and forwards, with and against the wind. Allowing for turning and so forth, this was equal to a speed of over 100 miles an hour. He claimed hat credit was due to British inventive skill and genius which could work silently, say nothing, and produce these remarkable results.

TREMENDOUS TEST IX A (J A Mi. It might be asked, could these machines fly in violent winds? The commandant of the Flying Corps had tried in how violent a wind it was possible to fly. There had been many volunteers for the task. It was a rule of the Flying Corps that nothing in the nature of spectacular flying was to be permitted. In this particular case two experiments were carried out. In the first instance, a day was chosen when tlie wind was blowing at its maximum power. A brave young man—he did not mention his name, for names were never mentioned—was to make the test. Others also wished to go. This young man's machine was one which Hew at 37 miles an hour in a tremendous gale. He took up his machine with no one to look on, no one to know of bis daring act. except the commandant, the timekeepers, and other officials of the school. So violent was the wind that when the machine was let go it rose perfectly straight in the air. It rose to 300 ft, to which height it was guided. For 1 (i minutes the driver directed it straight into the teeth of the wind over a course of 400 yards. it took 16 minute'! to cover than 400 yards. That meant that the wind must have been blowing at a speed just under the speed of the machine, and the latter was 57 miles an hour. Yet only a year ago people hesitated to go up in a wind of 1.) miles ail hour. "EM ARK ABM? CROSS-COUNTRY x FLTGIIT. Colonel See.lv described next a crosscountry run of 22 miles in a wind of great violence. An officer was chosen to make this test. The wind was dead ahead. The journey of 22 miles occupied I'/. hours, and the time for the return journey was four seconds under 12 minutes, a speed of about 11") miles per hour. The power of aeroplanes properly constructed and with brave men to

guide them was most remarkable. A statement liad appeared in the press that , the aeroplanes at Farnborough were rotating away, and a picture had been drawn of gloomy young men who could not fly (because they had nothing to ily on. /What were the facts? Since the date of the formation of the Royal Flying Corps in.May flights had been in progress for 1550 hours and 82,000 miles bad been flown—a distance more than three times round the world, lie regretted that six valuable lives bad been lost. They had now not only the best aeroplane in the world, but they could nianut'aetiu'e it in any numbers they chose. The weak point was that in England engines were produced in small numbers, and that they were less efficient than those of foreign Powers. it bad been deduced that the best way to get over the difficulty was to offer British manufacturers a prize, and to promise a large purchase. The War Office and Admiralty would offer a prize of four figures for the best engine, and would promise the purchase of a large number.

AERIAL TARGET DIFFICULTY. How far was it possible for a large engine of war to hover over this country and wreak its will at one time? It was thought that the difficulty of hithing an aerial target was very great—for two reasons. First, because it would be very hard to overcome the mechanical difficulty of having really efficient quiek-iiring guns to fire at a high angle; tfnd, secondly, because in the absence of things to range at, it would be impossible to get a hit for a long time. Very careful enquiries and experiments had been conducted. He did not wish o go into details, but he could say from experiments he bad witnessed that all the mechanical difficulties had been com-, pletely solved, and that the actual difficulties of hitting a target at a considerable height and moving at an unknown speed had been enormously exaggerated, and that eveiyone had been surprised beyond measure at the comparative ease and the remarkable accuracy which could be attained in tiring at aerial targets. Mr. Rowland Hunt: That is all very well for the daytime, but what about the night? Colonel Seely said any idea of hovering over a battlefield by day at any height which airships could now attain must be abandoned.

» Mr. Hunt: What about approaehing by night? Colonel Seely's reply was that if we could not see the airship it would be very difficult for the airship to see us; therefore he did not think there was any undue alarm at the possibilities of this danger. Opposition members pressed Colonel Seely for further information. He replied: As I am pressed I will say that we have high-angled guns, and the position is such that the hovering of airships over prohibited places would be very dangerous to those airships.".