The Mena weekly star., 1918-02-07
PLAN TROUBLES
 FOR GERMANY
Systematic Allied Air Raiding on Great Munitions Plants Is Com ing---Airplanes With Speed
 of 2h Miles Minute.


 With the French Armies in the Field, Jan. 29.-Airplanes capable of two and half miles minute; pitched battles between great num- bers of machines on a side; syste- matte allied air raiding of Ger many's great intuition making cen- ters, hitherto almost immune, and generally double the air activity of the past year.
 These are some of the things Major Raoul Lufberry of Walling- ford, Conn, formerly premier ace of the Lafayette esquadriIle, sees for the coming twelve months in the air. He does not believe aircraft will finish the war.
 Heavy guns and trained men will put the finishing touch to it, he de- clared. But aviation in all it's branches will undoubtedly play it's big role and certainly a larger role than ever before in the coming year. Personally, I don't look for any startling new inventions. We will have steady and rapid improve mane of existing material. The final outcome is of course difficult to forecast, though it is certain that the next few months will see much faster and more powerful airplanes on both sides. It would not sur prise me if we were able to fly at least lii miles an hour by spring and i55 before the end of the war. And l mean average flying at those speeds, not occasional spurts."
 Predicts Two Miles a Minute.
 In predicting a speed of more than two and half miles minute in the future, Lufberry revealed that the aviator's latest equipment is a mask neutralizing the tremendous strain which high speed in the air places on the heart and lungs.
 Few land battles in the future will be without important aerial CO., operation on both sides; the largef the battle the more machines en- gagged above il" the officer contin- ued. This means big clashes ln air -more machines. Generally, as air eifeetlves increase, and they are in creaslng feyerishly on both sides, the fighting over the lines will not only be far more intense than last year and between speedier and more powerful machines, but between in ereasing greater numbers and larger groups.
 To Bombard German Plants. Constant night bombardments with large fleets of allied machines on enemy intuition making eenters are not only now possible, but prom lse to have an important effect on the outcome of the war. Groups of heavily armed bombing planes each carrying more than ton of high explosives, can raid the most important German munitions town and be virtually immune from at tack m the air. In the darkness they can steer by compass, launch their bombs and turn back home ward.
 Smaller and faster planes are virtually helpless in the darkness against big heavily armed raiders The latter have fixed object; that of dropping their bombs as thes
 ss over their targets. The former are on the hunt and it is no secret that they are at an extreme disadvantage with their light arma- ! ment against the more numerous guns of the larger machines. The Targets for Airmen. "It is common knowledge that most German munitions centers are systematically laid out in enormous blocks covering hundreds of acres | They present targets not easy tc miss, even from high altitude. "Of course the Germans will make similar raids. but they will not have i the advantage of finding allied mu- mtions works built in the form of vast aerial targets. They would have to swoop low. where anti-air- craft guns can get them.
 Unless the Germans find some new way of protecting their shell factories they are due for very uncomfortable time"