SINGAPORE BASE.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19893, 23 May 1936, Page 31 (Supplement)

SINGAPORE BASE.

FURTHER PROTECTION. TRAINING OF UNIT. Officers and men of the Royal Air Force have left England for Singapore to help in training the first unit of the Volunteer Air Force which came into being there six days ago. Others will follow later in the year, to form the nucleus around which may be built up an efficient force, manned for the greater part by local inhabiftants. The first unit, states the Air Ministry, will be trained primarily for co-operation with the fixed defences of the Singapore Base, and will be armed with aircraft similar to those used for such duties by-the Royal Air Force at home. For the moment the unit will be accommodated at the Air Force Aerodrome at Singapore, but as soon as the suitable buildings which are now in course of erection are completed the unit will be shifted ‘to the new civil aerodrome at Tan‘jong Rhu. The cost of these build< lings is being defrayed by the Sultan of Johore. No oflicial announcement has yet been made of the type of aircraft chosen for equipment of the unit, but the reference to co—operation duties suggests the Hawker Audax, which is the standard army co-operation aeroiplane of the R.A.F. This is one of >the many versions of the Hart light bomber biplane, and is powered with in Rolls-Royce Kestrel supercharged engine. It carries two men and the full equipment needed for liaison [lying with the army. Its maximum level speed of about 170 m.p.'h. is reached at a height of 14,000 feet. Presumably the aeroplanes would be employed in artillery spotting for the shore batteries. They would be sent far out to sea to search for enemy warships. Their close resemblance to the Hart suggests that they might even be used for dive-bomb-ing attacks on 'hostile vessels. Such Attacks in practice flying have shown nigh standards of accuracy, and few atudcnts of war doubt that, especially against relatively lightly armoured .\‘urships, the dive bomber is an effec—tive weapon. Risk to the aeroplane J 1: anti-aircraft shellfire is also minimised in a form of attack which car» ‘ lies the machine at very high speed—.:oo m.p.h. and more—within range of l the guns and leaves it in that danger ‘ zone for a very. few seconds only. i 1 a l