The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-06-21


 is the question I've been asked many times during the last few days after six months "in the air" on the West ern front. The answer is: We have better machines than the Germans. That's a comfort. We have better pi- lots man for man. That's undoubted. Our whole air force is more adaptable to the constantly changing conditions. That's obvious.
 Our machines are faster; they are better manoeuvred; they all climb easier and cleaDer-Frepch, Ameri- cans and Italians, too. The 70 miles an-hour machines are not there any longer. They are now practice "bus- ses" or on the scrapheaps of Old Eng land. Gone are the machines that climbed or crawled 2,00O feet in ten minutes, Our faster scouts are doing 150 miles an hour; the big "bombers'' run 100 miles easily; and latest types top 2,000 feet I minute.
 It's the speed of things in the air in France that is the most striking note. Twenty minutes from London to Brighton, or over the cross of St. Paurs Cathedral in 15 seconds! I'm agine it." thinks the landlubber.
 But airmen just now, in flocks, be- tween Dixmude and Amiens, and from Amiens to Noyon, are not thinking of those things at all. Height, speed, danger, stunts are not in our vocab- ulary. Those gre incidentals. It's wits against wits in the air-climb. tlexibility, ma2oeuvres, shooting, wis., ion, range of action, and the human factor all concentrated over the shelves of the battle to sweep the Ger mans to earth. It has not quite hap pened yet. Let that be said.
 Spectacular wonders. thrilling and inspiring, before audiences of hun dreds of thousands, have almost tired vision by their frequency-the central figures being the boys of England, who in the majority were at school when the war begun.
 Whats 1t like? - It's all right. Come over and help us. You'll have the time of your life. There's abso- lutely. no waiting for work now in the air. And the jobs a tough one," is what I've been telling my friends and come from squadrons which in a few weeks include two D. s. O.'s two bars and lot more loot-in the Ga vette. My samples purposely omit our massed attacks during the Ger man advance, for no one can keer accurate account of the dozens of things one does then. It is the indi- viduaI occurrences that stick dearest
 There's my young friend, Lieuten- ant B.. He flew over the Chan mel with 27 others month ago. The first morning of the German rush be- ohy-oi T n o1i feet. Ae' once, down shot German machine from the clouds and missed him. He dived 'at 90 miles," put her down at 11O, and pulled her up in a perfect loop, in which he wobbled beautifully in his own "spit-stream. '' He nosed up; opened fire; shot the Germans tank through. The Hun fell in flaming rags.
 My young pal stalled vertically, with engine on; then, before she nose-div. ed, kicked his right rudder hard, pull ed his stick right back to his elbow threw his machine over in a lovely spin, got out of a right hand on the third and into a left hand, flattened out at 500 feet, came down, received congratulations, blushed and vanish ed.
 That was his first time of tackling a German, and we have lots like him
 Three days after the push" began saw a nice-looking boy" of another squadron do Ca couple of Immel- mann's'' in the face of three fluster- ed German air men. The ''prince' of German airmen taught us the trick You stall, kick full your right rudder and right bank on. What happens We'll, the result is the quickest turn 1T the air you can achieve. It was done splendidly by a lad fresh from the aerodromes of Old England. He open ed fire, poured ten shots on to ont scattering fugitive, and drove hel down out of control.
 What we call "dog-fights'' have beer most numerous during the past three weeks. In one case IS of our ma chimes .outmanoeuvred twenty of tn. Germans, got round to eastward O them-between them and their happ, homes. Then came the "dog-fight' in which everything gets all mixed u in swirling chaos. The Germans "set their teeth. Seven were crashed, an the other thirteen scuttled inglorious ly to cover. Below was a mass o wreckage.
 And, as Sir Douglas Haig says None of our machines was missing after that.
 It amounts to this and we are a convinced it is an accurate deductio the Germans can fly; but they ca fly only. The bulk of their men ar quickly trained. All of ours are slo, growths. Never has the superiorit of British method been more marke than it has been in the air these Ia.