AEROPLANE IMPROVEMENTS—GIANT MACHINES—TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The experience gathered in the first eighteen months of the war by the aviators of the hostile armies has done more for the development of aeroplanes than many years of peaceful improvements could possibly have accomplished. The ever increasing size, power and stability of the heavier-than-air machine is plainly shown in the latest types of battle planes, in which a spread of wings exceeding seventy-five feet is no longer a novelty. True, the heralded approach of the gigantic German battle triplanes did not take place in the second year of the Great War, although it is an incontrovertible fact that such machines have been built and are being used for some purpose. But none of them took part in the fighting on the western front, nor has one of them been seen on the Russian battle lines. There is reason to believe, however, that these planes are used in naval reconnoitering, and their great size permits of the carrying of large supplies of fuel, giving them a great cruising radius. Reports from steamers plying the Baltic state that gigantic aeroplanes have been sighted high up in the air by captains and officers on Swedish and Danish ships, seemingly maintaining a careful patrol of that sea against possible Russian and British naval exploits.

There have been numerous unconfirmed reports concerning the use of cellon, a tough and yet completely transparent material, in the construction of aeroplanes on the German side, and occasional hints of new "invisible" machines were dropped now and then. The reports probably are based on some foundation of fact, but there is little to show that cellon is used to any large extent by the Teuton forces. Samples of the material reached New York late in 1915, but the actual uses to which it was put were not known at the time.

The tendency in recent months, especially on the western battle front, has been the "attack in squadrons," instead of the individual combats which made international heroes out of Boillot, Immelmann, Boelke, Warneford and Navarre. The squadron attack was first employed by the Germans in the Verdun operations. Previous to that time, only bombing expeditions had been undertaken en masse, as many as sixty aeroplanes taking part in a single attack. But actual aerial combat usually engaged only two or four aviators.

Early in February of the second year of the war, several famous French aviators fell victims to the new mode of warfare. It seems that as soon as a machine would appear above the trenches in that section, six or more German machines would rise quickly and surround the Frenchman. Outnumbered and surrounded on all sides the French machines rarely got back safely to their lines, among the first to be lost being George Boillot, world-famous as an automobile racer.

The German tactics at once were imitated and improved on by the allied forces, and by July, 1916, the French had perfected a system of defense which, paradoxically speaking, may be termed "air-tight." French aviation squadrons would be held in readiness at all times to repel attacks, and twenty machines usually were considered a "unit." At first sign of a hostile aeroplane approaching, ten French machines would rise at top speed to a height of 10,000 feet, while five minutes later the second ten would follow, rising to 5,000 feet. The attacking machine usually would be found at a height intermediate between the upper and lower French squadrons, both of which would attack the invader vigorously, and with highly satisfactory results.

One of the lessons of these true aerial battles between opposing squadrons has been the efficiency of the biplane, as compared with that of the monoplane. When the war started the monoplane was considered the machine par excellence for war use; its high speed and quick maneuvering being cited as most important for fighting in the air. Eighteen months of aerial battles have shown that for all-round fighting, bombing and reconnoitering the biplane is far more effective, and the construction of new monoplanes has been practically abandoned by the allied governments. The Germans, it is true, have found the Fokker type of monoplane a very efficient one, but the number of Fokkers in use is comparatively small, when the great fleets of Aviatiks and other well-known types of German biplanes are remembered.

Exact statistics regarding the number of aeroplanes at present in use along the various battle fronts are not available, but estimates made by aviation officers, by correspondents and from notes in the respective publications devoted to aviation abroad, fix it as in excess of 12,000 machines. More than half of these are used by the Allies on the western front; Germany is credited with 3,000 aeroplanes, Russia with about 1,000, Austria with 1,500, and Bulgaria and Turkey with 500. In a statement made in the British House of Commons, Mr. Tennant, speaking of the Royal British Flying Corps, declared that 835 officers and 521 civilians were on the waiting list of the Flying Corps in the last week of February, 1916.

France has definitely discontinued the use of monoplanes and is manufacturing them solely for the British forces, as some of the British aviators greatly prefer the monoplane. One of the reasons given by the French for their action is the construction of Fokker monoplanes by the Germans, which are so accurate a copy of the earlier Morane monoplanes of the French that they could not be distinguished from them in the air. Furthermore, the German copy of the Morane was far speedier and could easily outdistance or overtake the French machines of the same type. In place of the original Morane France now has three types of speed planes, the Maurice Farman, a 110 mph. biplane, the Morane-Saulnier, 111 mph., and Spad, 107 mph. The older Nieuports, too, are fast machines, being capable of more than 100 miles per hour.

The new Maurice Farman speed plane is a biplane of small wing area, the upper plane overhanging the lower. It is equipped with a new type of Renault-Mercedes eight-cylinder motor, giving 240 horsepower at the highest crank shaft speed. The Morane-Saulnier and the Spad are both monoplanes, but of different shape and construction from the original Morane; it is of the so-called monocoque type, made familiar to Americans by the Duperdessin monocoques which took part in the Gordon Bennett Cup race in Chicago in 1912. It is equipped with a device which was first used in Germany and which permits the firing of the gun through the propeller. It is an electric synchronizing device which fires the gun at the exact moment when the bullet will pass between the propeller blades.

Following the destructive raids of the German naval Zeppelins over the eastern counties of England during the last days of January, 1916, there came a period of retaliation flights by Allied aviators over German cities, attacks on railway stations and munition depots, culminating in the great attack of the coast of Schleswig-Holstein by a fleet of British aeroplanes. On a certain section of this coast the Germans have erected a series of Zeppelin hangars behind one of the most elaborate systems of defenses known at present. According to information which had reached the British admiralty, the German coast north of the Kiel Canal is protected at intervals by the most powerful antiaircraft artillery, including 4.1-inch guns, capable of firing thirty-five pound shells to a height of 26,000 feet at the rate of ten every minute. The risk which the British sea planes underwent was great, but there seems to have been no hesitation on the part of the aviators to fly to the attack.

Early in the morning of March 25, 1916, two sea-plane "mother ships," accompanied by a squadron of eight protected cruisers and fast destroyers under the command of Commodore Tyrwhitt, started from the east coast of England. When about fifty miles from Schleswig-Holstein five sea planes and one "battle aeroplane" (according to the German version of the attack) rose from the mother ships and flew toward shore. What happened during the next two hours is still a matter of doubt. Only two of the machines returned from the invasion, torn and riddled with bullets and shrapnel, reporting the most terrific shell fire from batteries of antiaircraft guns. The aviators declared, however, that they "successfully bombarded the airship sheds." The subsequent German report denied the claim, stating that none of the machines succeeded in even reaching the Zeppelin stations, which were several miles inland. Three of the sea planes were shot down by the German guns, and the aviators were made prisoners. It was a gallant attempt against heavy odds on the part of the British Flying Corps, and its failure probably was due to the small number of machines employed. If fifty or sixty machines had taken part in the attack, ten or twelve might have been lost, but the others would probably have been able to reach the sheds and do great damage to the Zeppelins stationed there.

It was from the same sheds that three days later the Zeppelins arose for their tremendous raids of England, during the week of March 30 to April 4, 1916, as many as seven of the airships appearing over the British Isles at the same time. During this series of raids London was visited by one of the airship squadrons, the visit resulting in twenty-eight deaths and forty-four injuries. Another squadron turned northward and dropped bombs on Stowmarket, Lowestoft, and Cambridge, while a third section of the air fleet attacked the northeast coast. One of the attacking air cruisers was hit by gunfire, as well as by bombs thrown from an aeroplane piloted by Lieutenant Brandon to a height of several hundred feet above the Zeppelin. This ship, believed to be the L-15, was so severely damaged that it was forced to descend in the mouth of the Thames, after dropping overboard portions of its machinery, gun, ammunition, and gasoline tank. The loss of the airship was admitted by the German admiralty in a statement issued on April 2, 1916, which said: "In spite of violent bombardment all the airships returned, with the exception of L-15, which, according to report, was compelled to descend in the waters of the Thames River. Searches instituted by our naval forces have, up to the present, not been productive of any result."

Zeppelin raids followed each other in quick succession, no less than forty having been chronicled by July 31, 1916. They became so common, in fact, that the people of England lost much of their first terror and began to view the spectacle of a bombardment from the air as something that was quite "interesting" to watch! How great the damage caused to manufacturing and to railroads and shipping has been in the course of these two-score air raids is something that the British censor has jealously guarded. That such damage has been done is but natural, for tons of explosives cannot be hurled from heights of two miles upon a thickly populated district without doing considerable harm. In one case, it is known, the first bomb dropped upon the power house of the manufacturing town which was attacked, and put the entire electric power and light supply out of business for a week.

Another Zeppelin raid, in which the attacking squadron suffered the loss of an airship, took place on February 22, 1916, in the neighborhood of Verdun. The Zeppelin L-77, one of the largest and latest of the German air fleet, crossed the French battle lines at a height of about 2,500 yards, when it was picked up by searchlights stationed in the rear. A violent bombardment immediately began and one of the exploding shells damaged the motor of the rear gondola. The speed of the Zeppelin was reduced by the failure of the motor, and one of the new French incendiary shells struck the gas bag near its center, causing a violent explosion. The two ends of the big gas bag dropped and as the gondolas hit the ground the entire load of bombs exploded, tearing the ship and its crew to shreds. Two other Zeppelins, flying at greater height, about ten miles to the north of the scene of the accident, watched the destruction and then continued inland over the French positions, dropping bombs for more than an hour. They returned undamaged to the German lines. Still another Zeppelin, L-19, was lost in the North Sea, on February 2, 1916, while returning from an "invasion" of England. Hit by gunfire from the British antiaircraft batteries—or by the Dutch, as some reports have it, for crossing over Dutch territory—the L-19 gradually dropped lower and lower until it floated on the surface of the sea. The British trawler, King Stephen, appeared and the crew of the Zeppelin asked to be taken off, and offered to surrender. The captain of the trawler frankly declared that he would not take the chance of rescuing twenty-eight well-armed German sailors, as his own crew only amounted to nine men, unarmed. He steamed away, leaving the Zeppelin crew to drown. When destroyers of the British fleet appeared later on, guided to the spot by the trawler captain's report, the Zeppelin and its crew had vanished.[Back to Contents]