Evening star., 1937-10-31
By C. PATRICK THOMPSON.


By C. PATRICK THOMPSON.
~ RITAINs airplane factories are
- busy. Some of them are so
busy they are working around
IL the clock seven days a week.
John Bull is speeding up his air-fleet
program, high spot of the colossal
$7,5000 100000 arms plan.
When Sir Cyril Newall learned to
fly as a young officer of Is, back In
| 1911, the British air fleet consisted of
| five gimcrack machines. When he
| took over command as marshal of the
Royal Air Force in September, 1887,
| the air fleet numbered 1,750 first-line
warcraft, with an unknown number
in reserve britain keeps the reserve
figure secret. BY May, 1888, the
marshal's command will aggregate
5000 first-line machines.
BY March 81, 1899. when the whole
of the blueprints of the current ex-
pansion have been metamofphosed into
cleaning, high-speed aircraft-bomb-
er, fighter and terceptor-weaponed
with quick-firing automatic cannon
and machine-gun batteries moving
with smooth rapidity in hydraulic
turrets, this polo-playing air warrior
will boss sky fleet of 5000 machines,
and active and shadow" factories
back of it capable Of expanding it
enormously from the word go" of
war emergency.
| This f1eet-as it will be 18 months
hence-John considers adequate for
security. But if tensions have not
eased, supplementary plans now in
cold storage will go into operation and
by 194I the air fleet will number 1000
machines.
| Personnel Increased.
| To man and handle the new air
fleet personnel has ALREADY been in
creased from 28,78O to $1,000 in the
last three years, and airmen are being
recruited at the rate of 5000 per
annum. Twelve regular and IA re-
serve schools train them, and volunteer
reserve schools are now being in-
augurated. The force now reckons to
take youngsters direct from public
school and university and turn out
competent service pilots in 18 months,
and good enough pilots in six months.
1t has taken John long time-and
| the successive shocks to his system OF
the Goering air fleet, planned Tor
aggression. the Mediterranean threat
to Mussolini's bombing planes, the
japanese air menace to Singapore,
and the realization that poison gas has
come to stay in war-tO make the
enormous effort needed to provide
himself with fleet as formidable in
the skies as his navy Is on the seas.
And even now he gruntS every time
he takes q look at the annual bill,
and reflects not only on the building
expense of the new air fleet, but on
the the cost of maintaining 1t at
| full strength and maximum efficiency.
For progress is so swift now that
airplanes are obsolete almost as soon
as they leave ground on their first
test flights, and the machines OF the
1887 air feet will all be replaced and
| in the reserve by 1941.
The airmen have their own worries
| in the realm of air-f1eet planning and
air-War thinking. With an enormous
empire and highly vulnerable island
heart, Britain has to plan for the
shortest and the longest range attack
and defense. She has to be ready to
fight in the air at dozen different
points over Europe, Africa and Asia,
and the seas between and beyond.
At the same time she has to be able
to concentrate an overwhelming force
at one strategic spot in the shortest
| time.
This means the development of big
| bombers and troop carriers able to
use long range and high speed as a
means Of defense, of even higher speed
destroyer craft to convoy the big
machines, fight on their flanks, engage
in advance-guard and rear-guard
actions; of flying -airplane carriers
(the sire of this machine is built and
will soon be on test on the Atlantic
air ferry).
Must Create Bombing Squadrons.
Great bombing squadrons have to
be created to carry war into the
aggressor country. The climbing
speed of fast interceptor squadrons
has to be enormously boosted. The
whole complex of problems means per-
sistent and unremitting teamwork by
scientists, engineers and chemists to
give the defense advantage against
the offense, since Britain will not
fight unless attacked, and then knows
she must lose the war unless she can
successfully defend the island strong
hold.
Everything in this new field OF war
is strange and experimental. The
powers of a modern air feet have
never been tested. The wars in
Ethiopia, Spain and China have so far
given only glimpses of potentialities.
Britain has come along fast since
she shed the wish thought: 1.-THE
League will take care Of everything"
First in air strength at the end of the
Great War, by 1892 Britain had sunk
to seventh place, with only TOO first
line aircraft. She was spending only
$50, 100000 a year on her air force.
Collective security" was the slogan
of socialist and pacifist, liberal, pro-
gressive idealist and churchman. The
notion that other states might not
play never occurred to this formidable
voting mass, even when Germany's
economic crisis swept Hitler and his
Nasis into power. There was . rude
awakening when Goering three years
later Matched out Europe's most power
full and up-to-date air feet.
By 1895 Premier Baldwin saw the