The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-20
FRENCH AIR FORCES ARE TRANSFORMED Have Learned Many Things
 From Germans BIPLANE IS SUPERIOR Use Different Class of Machines for Different Uses-Safety At Great Height FallaciOus-Plane Is
 More Difficult to Hit
BIPLANE IS SUPERIOR

Paris, February Correspondence of the Associated Press.) .)-French aviation authorities agree that Germany has been able to entirely transform it's aviation service since the war began, making im- provements of a most important charac- ter, while it possessed certain advan- tages over the French flying corps at the outset.
 The reasons for the superiority of the Germans in what was considered before the war French speciality will perhaps become public in the Parliamentary de- bate that is imminent One aviator at tributes the difference to the fact that while the French followed aviation as a sport, the Germans took it up seriously for practical application to the require ments of the army. He points out that the Germans were flying at night long before the war began, while the French began their nocturnal trips only after the war was several months old
 The same authority warns against the assumption that the results obtained by the French flying corps are negligible. Whatever may be the foundation for crit iclsm of this branch of the service. he says, the results obtained in some ways have been done far more appreciable than what the Germans have done. He recalls that during the battle of the Marne, Sep tember 8, 1914, aviators destroyed half of the artillery of the Sixteenth German army corps in the region of Triaucourt.
 REMARKABLE EXPLOIT
 This exploit was all the more remark able since the French had never appeared t.. arrive at any results in experiments made with the combined maneuvers of artillery and flying machines before the var. One of the last notable attempts made in 1912 during the maneuvers re- suited in the theoretic capture by the op- posing army of an entire flying corps. During the French maneuvers of 1913 the flying corps, used under modified condi- tions, acquitted itself more creditably, but the experiments gave no hint of the utility of the corps in actual warfare. Consequently, as compared with Ger many, where it seems the experiments were more significant, aviation as serv- ice in the army was apparently neg lected The idea of protecting flying corps with steel armor, at one time considered, was abandoned and was only taken up again after German armored flying ma chimes had been captured.
 The French also stuck to the mono plane until thy had captured enough of the German biplanes to give them dem- onstrative proof that they. were superior for most different kinds of air work The French also learned from the Germans that security at great height is falla- cicus. Fragments of shells reach them even at height of $500 yards, while at 1900 yards it is often more difficult for the gunners to get the range. The fire at that point is generally too high.
 Again, at the beginning, the French aviation service used the same type of machine for all kinds of missions. All at once they discovered that the Ger man machine that made @ raid on a metropolitan center or military point was not the same as the machine that to1 Ina Arse NF h YSn0 al n~U he result of this was the beginning of a classification of aircraft with reference to special adaptibility.
 DIFFERENCE IN TACTICS
 There was also at the beginning a marked difference in the tactics em-