The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-01
AIRPLANE
 WILL SOON BE
 CARRYING BOMBS

With the American Army in Eng land, Aug. 1.-Almost every airplane used by the Allies soon will carry bombs. Experts in aerial warfare are convinced that the general eff | ciency of the corps will be increased if bombing device is added to every plane sent out, even though it be of the type once intended only for recog- nizance work, and Americans now training in England are being as care fully drilled in bombing as in hand ling a machine gun.
 Lessons learned during the resist ance offered in the recent offensive have served to increase the already high regard of both British and Am erican officers in the air service for the low flying, bomb-carrying craft, and, over the camps and countryside where aviators are being trained, planes are in evidence almost every hour, dipping down from high in the air and skim ming the nearby country, barely miss ing tree-tops and houses. It is the newer lesson they are learning, and observers back from the front where the allied planes did such remarkable work not only in scouting and dis tracting the enemy but actually in breaking up formations and at points checking the onward movement have urged concentration on that form of training.
 British trainers detailed to Ameri- can aviation camps, have been liberal in their praise of the new fliers from overseas, their only criticism being that the Americans are "a bit too keen" Their tendency has been to go in for flying stunts rather too ear ly in training but even this the train CTS have admitted is a valuable fault, although one not to be encouraged. It has been pointed out to the Amer jeans that team work as well as indi- vidual efficiency is a prime requisite and the Americans have steadied themselves to the routine their train CTS have found makes for general ad- vancement if not for individual ap- plause. Fancy flying, the acrobatic work that once found favor and drew 5eavy rate receipts at aerial exhibi- lions in the United States, still taught but the learning of that form of fly ing also has come to be regarded merely as routine and wholly incident to the steady, low flying desirable for attacking camps and troops in forma- | ton.
 | Accidents have occurred in the camps where the. Americans are being | trained and a few men have been kill ed but the records show that the per rentage is far less in England than in the United States. Those in train ing here are inclined to attribute the difference more to luck than to any thing else, although there also is pointed out the probability that the average airplane used in England is better made machine than the average that has been used in the United States.
 The bombing devices being attached to virtually every plane is not the contrivance that was used in the ear | Tier days of the war. That used than was little more than a mechanism that released the proiectile, allowing it to fall at a point approximately near the target. The device now being used is one with which the operator may with much practice become all most as proficient in craftsmanship as an artilleryman is with his gun. AL
 most every light plane will carry
 bombs of at least 25 pounds and from
 the heavier types there will be hurl-
 ed the huge containers of high ex-
 plosive not materially different from those used by the Germans in some of the more recent raids.