Evening star., 1935-04-28
New Headquarters Air Force Strips
For Action, Evolving New Principles

period Of ~ days. The maneuvers
were designed to test whether Gen
eral Headquarters Air Force combat
unit could operate In the field, con-
stantly changing its theater of oper-
ations, take care of itself. supply itself
by air transportation of rations and
Air Corps supplies, and evacuate its
sick. All functions Of field operations
and the present field equipment of the
wing underwent rigid testing under
war conditions. Through all sorts of
weather conditions. planes Of the Wing
flew q total Of 3,753 hours without
single serious accident and with but
one forced landing. AS a result of
the maneuvers improvements are being
made which are expected greatly to
improve the mobility and field eff
cheney Of all air combat units.
The second major maneuvers, a
cold-weather test flight, operated
during the entire month Of February
in the Northern and Northwestern
States, involved II airplanes Of the
various service types. These ma
neuvers resulted in some of the most
dramatic incidents in peace-time serv-
ice flying, taking the planes through
savage billiards, high winds, tempera-
lures of far below zero and even a
! terrific duststorm. The lessons Of
| these maneuvers were many and i'm
portant and are resulting in redesign-
ing of engine covers, wheel skis,
| cockpit and cabin heaters. flying
clothing and other equipment. I'M
proved methods of coldweather start
ing of engines will be another result.
| Another test mission involved a
hurried round trip from March Field,
Calf. to Maxwell Field. Montgomery,
Ala. by the 18th Attack Group. re-
Gently reconstructed from the old 18th
| Pursuit Group. This group, led by
| Capt. Ira c. Eaker, former opera
tions officer at Boiling Field, demon
strated the high degree of mobility
of the new @. H. @. units. No delay
of greater than IS minutes was met
for any reason other than weather
and the planes averaged In excess
of 220 miles per hour for some legs
Of the trip.
Bombardment Plane Is Key.
! The bombardment airplane, because
of the vastly improved speed and per-
formance Of this type, has become the
backbone of the new G. H. @. Air
Force, and the pursuit airplane, for
mer king Of the skies, has been
relegated to the position of an
auxiliary. 1t has been found that
in order to cope with the new bom-
bardment planes at all. the modern
| pursuiter must be armed with heavy,
long-range machine guns and even
small cannon, or must resort to the
rather uncertain method of dropping
| light time bombs on the lombard
ment airplenes while in fight.
Although the G. H. @. Air Force
has been organized and is function
/ ing, it is a skeletonized force and
its crying need is for personnel espe-
cially officer personnel. Tactical
| squadrons which should have "a COM
/ missioned officers in many cases are
composed of not more than three
! commissioned officer-pilotS of the
| Regular Amy. three or four Reserve
officers on active duty and three or
! four flying cadets. 1t is considered
/ that the absolute minimum of Regu-
lar officers to a squadron should in
/ clude at least the squadron COM
msnder, flight leaders, the adjutant
and the engineering officer. or about
eight to the squadron. Service squad
rons in some cases are down to a
single Regular officer
The shortage of personnel is far
more serious a handicap than the
shortage of airplanes," it was ex-
planned by one of the staff officers of
the G. H. @. Air Force. We can
double up on airplanes and train two
or more crews to each plane. The