New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-29

a good man? Not more than six weeks. II we
adopt certain idea suggested by our fellow
countryman from the French air service.
The root Of this idea is to train our recruits
at first. not for work on aeroplanes that Tight
but for work on aeroplanes that scout. y
battle-pilot is a long task. reconnaissance
nilot is a relatively short one. Let us 60 INTO
the air service on the Western front by ITS
fastest entrance Our fellow-cOuntryman was
b;,oeelf trained for reconnaissance at Buc in
France during period beginning on first
of july and ending on fifteenth Of August
He then flew. and he afterward taught others
70 fly. He has been pupil, operator and
teacher. He knows what can be done, and now
We can go into reconnaissance and release
certain number of Frenchmen and English
men for battle and then work on into battle
ourselves. Taking this route, we can reach
the front. and learn at the front and help en-
phatically to win the war with less than hall
of the training-time that would be required
for making complete perfected American
battle-units. 1t is an idea Of cooperation and
of immediate helpfuness. Adopting 1t, we can
begin to send American aviators to France ana
Belgium. and to the Western front into actual
service long before the summer is out IN num-
bers limited only by one consderation-the
machines
So what of the machines?
Much has been said against American aero
planes and particularly against the motors in
American aeroplanes. 1t is said often IN
manner most unjust. No art was ever yet
learned without practice, incessant practice
youminous practice And how much practice
has our government given to our manufacture
ers of aeroplanes? In the eight years from
1908 to 1915, inclusive, the United States
army ordered just fifty-nine aeroplanes, and it
ordered them from just four manufacturers.
At the end of 1915 the great war had been
going on for seventeen months. | admire the
hardness with which Mr.. Wilson now tells us
TO put our backs INTO the WAL II i Ho' ~
easy to improvise an aeroplane as it is to inn
provise a new political policy. And / admire
the cool aloofness with which certain depart
mental officials remark that for some reason
American manufacturers cannot make aero
nlanes and aeroplane motors as precisely
nice as those of Europe. The reason rises
manifest from the very surface OF things TO
stub the toe of anybody who does not live on
an Olympian bureaucratic cloud. The Euro
mean manufacturers have had orders; our
manufacturers have not Probably more than
s20.0OO.OOO of American capital has been
plunged and sunk and lost puttering about
making piffling experiments liz the hope, I'M
guided and unreazed, Of orders from the gov
eminent of the United States.
To-day the total number of aeroplanes IN
service in the army is less than 100; and the
total number Of aeroplane factories so
equipped as to justify ordinary regular con-
ventional governmental orders is, according to
Mr.. Charles d. Wacott, head Of the Smith
sonian Institution and head of our United
States Government Advisory Committee on
Aeronautics, twelve. They employ Altogether
perhaps some 1000 men. am told by Mr.
Frederick W. Barker, President of the Aero
nautical Society Of America, that these fac.
tories, rs they are, could produce a surplus of
only 600 machines between now and the first
Of next year.
Therefore | calculate that they will not re-