Arizona republican., 1920-09-30
SLUMP IN ]. $. AIR
 SERVICE WORRIES
BY GEORGE B. WATERS N. E. A. Staff Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25-The air service branch of the war department having insufficient appropriations to equip heavily and maintain a large personnel, is finding it necessary to go slow and confine it's preparedness program" to being ready with the in formation on the kind of airplanes needed and how to build them, in case of war At the same time, officers are praying that the nation won't be called upon soon to fight real war, for, they say, the air branch would be in 'eIl of a fix" if the dogs of war should be turned loose on America suddenly Brig. Gen. William Mitchell says if war should burst upon the country now, it would take IS months to equip the army's aviation.
 But the air service would be able to drop few bombs with equipment al- ready purchased. and this year it has s5,250,000 to spend in experimentation and $6,o00,0Q0 more it must spend for service equipment. All told the ap- none of which has been spent, except what has been necessary to maintain the branch since June 30. Contracts Out
 Scraping together some money that was left from last years S25. 900, 900 appropriation, the ar service has just contracted for the following equip ment:
 Fifty combat pursuit single scatter planes, ordnance model D, from the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor corpora ton, costing s65O. .0O0.
 Fifty combat pursuit single seaters. Thomas Morse model M B-3, bought from Thomas Morse Aircraft corpora tion; cost s655,0 900.
 | Ten armored ground attack three scatter triplanes, equipped with two Liberty '12' engines, the crew encased with armor plate; these triplanes. | mounting eight machine guns and q 3 g nm. cannon, ordered from the Boeing Airplane company; cost $500,000.
 Forty corps observation two seaters, from the Dayton Wright Airplane company; cost $4SS.000. l Twenty of the largest Martin bomb CTS, with a 72-foot sweep, carrying two pounds of bombs, bought from the Martin Aeroplane company; cost s1,- 100000
 In addition to this new and up-to- minute equipment, the air service has 5000 other airplanes of all types | divided as follows:
 Good for training purposes 2OOO Fit for service purposes -..... 400O Obsolete and experimental types. 5000
 All told the service has stored about 25,0O0 engines, some of which are the best that's been made. either obsolete or obSoleScent- Fifteen thousand ot these have been prepared and perma- nently stored to await any emergency that would call them into use
 Personel of 17,516 The personnel of the air service pro- vided by the recent reorganization act, is:
 Major general Brigadier general ............ Offlcers ................ + 1 Enlisted men h(lflt
 Of the enlisted men. 2,500 are flyine cadets. In addition the service has ap. proximately 5000 civilian employees.
 ''In order to make the air service strength sufficient to correspond witt
 the army provided by. congress, w,
 should have at least three times a.
 many as we have" declared Captail
 David $. Seaton, of the army air ser
 vice.
 ; Need Industry T would say the two most importan vice are experimentation to keep III , with the latest development. and. al aircraft industry to build the plane we develop
 , I Until America got into the war, al ? aviation secrets were carefully guard : cd by both the allies and Germany f Germany made the greatest progres ? in aviation.
 Germany specia lized on acrOdyna
 mics that perfected the shape and line ! of airplanes,' said Captain Seator