The sun., 1918-08-18
What 1t Means to Win the War in the Air
Air Department Needed to Coordinate
Effort and Stupendous Task
Could Be Done

fighters you need $4,000 replacement men
year, you need $4,000 training machines
for those $4,000 replacement men. But
the fighting machines must themselves be
replaced 100 per cent. a month; so on a
basis of 5000 fighting machines you need
60 900 fighting machines year-all this
note, on the basis Of only 5000 fighters
constantly afield.
Il should say declared Henry Wood
house, author of military Aeronautics,"
that to keep 5000 fighters daily and
hourly above the firing line, we should
produce $4,000 air machines a year and
300 900 or 400, 900 motor engines"
If that total is needed for 5000 fighters
figure twenty times that for 100000 fight
ers, and you realize what the phrase "1OO,-
600 airplanes to win the war" means.
Many Think 5000 Planes Enough.
And yet there are those authorities who
think that only 5000 fighting machines
hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, above the
enemy lines could win the war. This, of
course, takes full account of days of wind
and fogs, when both men and machines
would have to go off the map. But on the
basis of 5000 constant fighters represent
ing a total of $4,000 machines required,
figure the costs:
The war is now costing $500, 100000
day and not less than ten million casual
ties year to all the nations engaged.
Of the $4,000 machines needed to sus-
tain 5000 constant fighters, 20 per cent.
would be single motored, 30 per cent. be
double motored, 50 per cent. would be
three and four motored The big machines
would cost $4,000, the small machines
$40 900, with 1880 extra for instruments
and ordnance Or average the machines
at $4,000 each. What is a total of
50. 900, 900 900 plus to win the war against
a waste of $3.50, OO0,O 600, 900 and ten mill
ion men a year to keep the war dragging
on an endless stalemate!
Go back and read over these figures
carefully again. And if you want few
more, contemplate the additional facts.
There are in fighting airplane 1000
different parts, each of which needs as
fine and delicate adjustment as a camera
lens or compass needle; and you can't
produce this kind of thing by shaking
stick at it and roaring like Mr.. Bundle.
1t takes the finest and best material and
the finest and best finger tips working
the material and the finest and best brains
and eyes behind the finger tips.
Why Rigid Test. Are Necessary.
Early in the wear, when the tally Of
deaths in the training planes began to
total aarningly large, bureau OF skilled
metallurgists and chemists was established
to test every metal going into the engines
or airplanes. Why? Because only 2
per cent variation in one amalgam of
steel for the high powered engines meant
a dead airnan as soon as he got into high
speed at attitudes above 10000 feet.
The same thing was done for airplane
fuels to insure a gasolene evaporation at
a low point And please recall that the
airplane as a war arm is less than two years
old. 1t was only toward the end of 1916
that the world awakened to the fact that
the only way TO win the war without
turning half of humanity into SHAMELESS
was by supremacy. in the air.
1t now becomes apparent why the de-
mand for an air ministry or aerial sec
retary and bureau distinct from army and
navy has split the official world into two
great camps. Those demanding an air
ministry or aerial secretary, as in Eng
land, men like Senator Reed and Harry
New, who are backing the bill introduced
on August l, see in the airplane not a
branch of the army nor q branch of the
navy but great air army in itself, a
great air fleet, which shall not only sup
plant but may supersede both army and
navy. They see the airplane as one Of
the great triumvirate-army, navy, air.
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