BRITISH AVIATORS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1915, Page 6

BRITISH AVIATORS.

TRAINED BY SHAM BATTLES IN THE CLOUDS. (By J. H. Duckworth in the Ne\v York Sun). Sham fights in the air now form an important part of the schooling of a British Royal Flying Corps recruit. No airman is despatched to the front until he has proved in duels fought high up in the clouds that he has nerve, courage and skill to fit him to engage in mortal combat a pilot of a German taube.

For a whole afternoon recently at the famous aerodrome at Brooklands, near London, I was held spellbound at the extraordinary daring of young British officers who were practising three thousand feet above the earth the thrilling drcus tumbling manoeuvres that they would be called upon to execute in grim earnest later on in France or elsewhere.

The war game that was being played was an exceedingly fascinating one. An attack was threatened by hostile aviators. It wa 3 not known whether the marauders would come from the Hcndon aerodrome, about twenty miles to the north-east on the other side of London, or from Farnborough, where the royal aircraft factory is situated, ten miles to the south-west.

An aviator in a fast 110 horse-power single-seated monoplane of the scout type was circling just below the low hanging clouds on the look-out for the enemy. By means of a smoke gun he was to signal the direction from which the raiders were coming, the type and number of machines and the speed at which they were approaching. As soon as the waiting fliers below received the signal they were to haul out machines with a greater turn of speed and ascend and

ATTACK THE ENEMY WITH MACHINE GUNS.

Presently the scout sent out a series of long and short puffs of black smoke. Aviators and mechanicians at once became active.

"Get ready M-2, 3 and 5 and T-4," ordered the squadron commander. In a trice these particular four bi-planes-12,500d01. Vickers, Sons and Maxim 150 horse-power armored machines—were dragged out of their hangars. Pilots and gunner observers climbed into their seats and strapped themselves in. Mechanicians gave one final glance over their machines, especially examining the wires of the steering apparatus. Helpers cranked up by vigorously tugging at the propellers and with a deep roar the aeroplanes leaped forward and shot into the air. Like newly-released homing pigeons, the four warplanes circled around the aerodrome four or five times before fading off in the direction of Hendon. The machines quickly disappeared over the tree tops of this'heavily wooded part of Surrey, the noise of their motors dying away until it was as soft as the droning of bees.

'■Here they are," somebody shouted, after an interval of perhaps ei°-ht minutes.

From an unexpected quarter to the east the battling warplanes hove in sight. The five enemy machines carried little red penants from the trailing edges of their rudders.

It did not take a second to see that the defenders had the faster machines. They were already flying above the enemy. By the time the machines were over the aerodrome our aviators were within machine-gun, .range, and had opened fire with blank cartridges. Though it was only a make-believe encounter, the sight of these nine aeroplanes struggling in the air was one never to be forgotten. A "German" would suddenly turn the nose of his taube towards the earth, hoping in a long swift volplane to elude the fellows after him. But, quick a s a flash, the other fellow would follow suit. Then one of the enemy aircraft would seem suddenly to capsize. The tail would drop, and the machine would commence to slide backward, and then roll oyer and over on its side. But tricks like this to escape annihilation were useless. The defenders refused to be cheated of their prey. And all the while these tricks were being performed the quick-firers were keeping up

AN INCESSANT "POM-iPOMING." After about ten minutes of this kind af thing a small gun was fired from the ground, as a signal for the fliers to come down. The mimic battle in the air was over. The five "German" aviators had been theoretically put out of business. The hangars and workshops had been saved.

For the last two years German constructors have been very carefully standardising their machines (meanwhile not making much progress otherwise), so that last August they had about 1300 military aeroplanes in good condition, and their output to-day is certainly large. But even if they had 10,000 aeroplanes the Germans could not wrench from the English the ascendancy of the air, the importance of which Sir John French has so often emphasised, not so much because the best British biplanes can fly faster and climb quicker than the comparatively cumbersome though wonderfully reliable German machines but owing rather to the remrakable individual skill of the flying officers of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.

Much of the credit for this efficiency must be given to General Sir David Henderson, the military flying chief, who was appointed to his post about eighteen months ago. He had then been a certificated airman for a couple of years, having made flights under the name or Henry Davidson. Up to that time the Army Air Battalion had been composed almost exclusively of junior officers, and the accession to their'ranks of an officer of high rank like Henry Davidson was warmly welcomed at the War Office. When the full story of General Henderson's aviation achievements in the war comes to be written it will undoubtedly provide a thrilling chapter in the-liistory of the 'campaign.