Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 192, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1918 — BLUNDERS DELAY WASTE, GRAFT [ARTICLE]

BLUNDERS DELAY WASTE, GRAFT

UNITED STATES SENATE REPORTS INEXCUSABLE MISMANAGEMENT. The senate committee on military affairs have made their report on the aircraft situation. The committee says, “It must be admitted that the aeroplane program has, up to the present, presented many aspects of failure.” “A substantial part of the first appropriation of $640,000,000 for aircraft was practically wasted.” Some of the things pointed out by the committee are as follows: There is not an American plane upon the western front. Not a single American-made heavy bombing plane is being used in battle.

The United States has not developed and put in quantity production a successful chasse, or fighting plane. 'But sixty-seven De Haviland places, intended for general purposes, had arrived at the front on July 1, although 25,000 were promised in a public announcement issued June 8, 1917. The De Haviland plane, the only type now being / tumed out in quantity, has proven unsatisfactory except for reconnoissance and observation and will be replaced by a machine of later design as soon as it may be possible without complete suspension of production. The French and British governments have supplied the American army with 2,114 fighting planes, enabling the maintenance of thirteen squadrons of eighteen flyers each on the front. This is “wholly inadequate to meet reguirements of modern warfare.” The Liberty motor is excellent for the heavier planes. It is too heavy for light and fa&t combat planes. No fighting plane of any design has yet been adapted to the Liberty engine.

The cross licensing agreement entered into by the government with the manufacturers’ aircraft corporation is denounced as vicious and should be abrogated. The committee attributes the disappointing results in aircraft production to three chief causes: That the airplane program was largely placed in the control of the great automobile and other manufacturers, who were ignorant of aeronautical problems. These manufacturers undertook theimpossible task of creating a-motor which could be adapted to all classes of flying craft. It is not too much to say that our airplane program has been largely subordinate to the Liberty motor. We failed at the beginning of the war to adopt the common sense course of reproducing the most approved types of European machines in as great numbers as possible. This should have been carried on coincident with the production of the Liberty motor. This sound policy has very recently, but after a lamentable lapse of time, been adopted.