A NEW WAR TERROR.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 12

A NEW WAR TERROR.

’PLANES WITHOUT PILOTS. Just as surface ships can be navigated by wireless, so is it now possible to manoeuvre aircraft by the same wonderful system, says a naval correspondent of the Daily*Mail. So rapidly are details being perfected that before long it will be possible for a flight of ’’pilotless” ’planes to be sent out from a flying ship and operated as effectively while they are in the air as they would be if there were a skilled aeronaut in each of them. And it is quite certain that now the system has proved workable ‘ flying ships” will be adapted to it. Already they have become extraordinarily [efficient in their equipment when one remembers that they are only war babies that have had only a few years in which to “grow up.” In appearance they resemble derelicts rather than seaworthy vessels. Their big, barn-like hulls are topped by a perfectly flat and naked deck, for the most up-to-date of them have no top hamper showing. Such “bridges” as they do possess are built on a disappearing plan. By “touching a button” they drop out of sight, while another touch brings them into place again. The. machines are carried inside the hanger, or hull, which is divided by fireproof screens into various compartments.

When a flight is to be ihade the machine is sent to the deck by an electric lift, and all the upper structures drop as if by magic, leaving the, machine a clear run for “taking off.” When it returns, an attachment beneath the fuselage grips cables stretched along the deck and thus enables the ’plan* to make a safe landing. In addition, the ship contains all the workshops, spare part stores, and other “fitments” of a well-equipped aerodrome. To supplement these with the radio plan necessary for ‘‘wireless control purposes is the only thing needed to enable the ship to “work” her complement of machines on the pilotless system. Knowing the progress that is being made in that direction it is not difficult for one to envisage the “flying ship” of the near future.

She will be able to proceed to any point desired and there send out her swarm of hornets to drop bombs or discharge torpedoes ( upon any selected objective. All the machines will be controlled by a kind of “push button” arrangement on the ship herself and she will be as easily able to conduct an offensive against a land objective as against one at sea—even more easily, in fact. Nor will she be in any danger from submarines, as she can be equipped with a sure device for defeating them. All this may sound uncanny, but it is one. of the possibilities of the near fu* ture. . The prospect of having a “flying snip heave to alongside her coasts and sending out a number of radio-controlled aeroplanes to carry destructiorf far and wide inland is not a cheerful one for any country to contemplate, but it is one that all countries possessing a coast line have to face as a result of the inevitable development of the “flying ship.”