The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-02-25
Member az The Associated Press


CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON
Pilots for Fighting Ships
In these days when most Ameri-
cans are taking some interest in the
nations resources for defense, it is
some satisfaction to view the man
ner in which civil aviation has de-
veloped in this country and thereby
furnished VI with reserve OF pilots
for fighting airships unmatched any
where else in the world.
1t. Col. Carl Byoir recently pointed
this fact out in an article written
for the Army and Navy Journal,
spokesman for the nations military
services. In this article Col. Byoir
asserted that these pilots. together
with the airplane manufacturing es-
adjustments of the country, consti-
tute one of the nations greatest de-
fensive resources.
According to Col. Byoir. America
divides the money she spends on avi-
alton in three almost equal parts. For
next year the army budget calls for
So. 483 900. The navy should receive
SAG $50 900 and the air mail $26,000,-
600.
To compare the national defense
value Of those three type dollars is
to prove all three vital, the colonel
contends. Nor do factors peculiar to
the three types of expenditure sup
port the choosing of the army as
against the navy. or the navy as
against the air mail, or any one of
the three as more essential to ade-
quate national protection than the
others.
This nation has some 2,2O8 regular
army and navy pilots. We have 2,460
reserve pilots Of the army, navy, and
marines. The total Of civil pilot Ii
censes outstanding today is about
1900. OF these nearly 10000 are
transport or limited commercial rat
ings, meaning that their holders have
had far more solo flying time than
the average World war pilot who flew
throughout the war period had when
the war ended.
Many army and navy pilots hold
civil transport tickets. But if we
omit that whole group, we still have
nearly four experienced civil pilots
for every regular. And il we further
omit the 2,460 reserve pilots of the
sevices many Of whom also hold civil
pilot ratings, we still have 5000 COM
mercial pilots available as a national
protection reserve.
But no fair estimate of the value
OF our air mail routes to the army
and navy can omit the reserve Off
GERS who fly the mails, because those
men are getting, in many cases, ex-
peYience far more extensive than reg |
ular service pilots can hope to gain
with the limited appropriations. Con-
slider that the average army pilot can
only get 165 hours year solo time.
On the air lines the first-string pi- !
lots often pile up that many hours
in eight weeks.
And the air line pilots, far from be-
ing in obsolete and slow planes, are
often flying faster craft with more
power and performance than many
of the service pilots. Any man IA
miliar with the abrupt conversion to
commercial type high speed trans
ports forced on the services few
years ago by the stream lined, spats-
equipped, transports. knows that
commercial aircraft have led the way
to service types in America ever since
1877. Even today the new 1888 type
experimental army bombing and at
tack planes show the definite influ-
ence Of the civil race planes devel-
oped for the national air races last
September. In the absence Of any
adequate army q navy high speed
airplane construction appropriation
ana program. individual private
builders have pioneered. and while
they are still hundred miles an
hour slower than q British seaplane,
thy hays touched so miles an hour
otxaiehtaway. And this = lust about
= hundred mf1es ahead Of our high
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