The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-02
AERIAL NAVY 0F
 GREAT BRITAIN Proud of Seaplane Fleet Developed in Past
 Few Months

Although the numbers of our military aeroplanes are nothing to boast abou when compared with those of France ant new means of offense and decense which would give Us some measure of satisfac- tion. says London Answers
 This branch is the naval air service
 Like everything else the sailor tackles he has gone in for this new science whole heartedly. required to make his particular branch of the new service the best in the world.
 And to his credit. let it be said, he has succeeded admirably.
 Twelve months ago the naval air serv- Ice did not exist for practical purposes. There were few men and a few ma. chimes, the nucleus of the service today. But those few men werA navy men, and navy men have not got the name of being thorough for nothing. They were used to riding the waves, and, though in some quarters there was deal of chaff about them being out of their element, they were just as determined to ride the winds.
 So they set about it in the naval way, and at once began to do things. They did things which shocked the military branch of the service inexpressibly. They cut through red tape, they kicked aside con ventions, they refused to be circum- scribed by a hide bound officialism
 Where the war office seemed to be doing it's best to dishearten the designers and builders of aeroplanes, the sailors came along and looked at the machines, and, if they saw possibilities in them. bought them and practiced with them to see what they could do. And while the war office was theorising about the machines. submitting them to this test and the other test, estimating the break ing stresses of this wire and that spar, the sailors were finding out by experience If the machines could fly, and what they were worth in the air.
 The navy way of doing things, on the face of it, looks dangerous, and you would think that they must have suffered for it. But they have not. While the army pilots were being killed here and there, the sailors were getting off un- scathed. They were smashing up ma chimes, 1t is true, but every smashed ma chine was lesson learned, and when the machine was rebuilt there was gen. erally some improvement put into 1t as a result of the smash.
 Somehow the sailors generally seem to save their necks, and altogether they have only lost three or four men, while 10 army pilots were killed in a few weeks quite recently.
 What happened regarding a new lubri- eating oil which was placed on the mar ket Is typical of the navy-and the army. The army received some from the makers, and began long series of tests, finding out the specific gravity and goodness knows what else.
 The navy got some of the oil, tipped it into the tank of a machine. and went flying to see how the motor liked it. The motor, fabricated with the new oil ran sweeter than ever before. This was good enough for the navy. It at once placed an order.
 Weeks afterward the army was still carving out its experiments with that oil.
 Today shows the result of the navy way. We have five naval air stations dotted round our coast watching for the sea. One of these stations is situated in Southampton water. where 1t can give an eye to our dockyard at Portsmouth, il necessary. Another is at the Isle o1 Grain, guarding the mouth of the Thames and within easy distance of Sheerness Then along the east coast we have an other situated at Felixstowe. and still further north comes the Yarmouth sta ton. Right over the border is our Scot. tish naval air station at Dundee.
 AS for the numbers of seaplanes and +aeroplanes possessed by the navy, MT Churchill a little while ago. said we had 62 of the former and 40 of the latter Our aeroplane fleet Is the finest in ths