With the coming of the New Year, a beginning is to be made in forming balloon barrage squadrons for the defence of London. It is believed that there will be at first three squadrons of 400 men each, with a balloon to every seven or nine men, including three trained technicians from the Royal Air Force.
The idea of the barrage is to suspend from the balloons a fine net in which aeroplanes will be entangled. The height from which it may be hung in still rather unknown. Some believe 25000 ft. others say not more than 15000 ft. It cannot, with the numbers of squadrons as yet available, be hung all round London. But the effect of its being somewhere should work powerfully on the moral of the enemy, and it is this, the human element, which it is most important to attack,'as a wing Commander writes to "The Times One hears so much of how the morale of those on tne ground will be affected. Perhaps this is natural But what of the feelings of the mass of young pilots after. flying for hours over sea and enemy territory, when they realize that an effective balloon barrage reduces their chances of return to a two to one chance, and that they will get no warning of the impending disaster, no Sporting chance depending on their own skill, such as one had in a "dog fight" in the Great War; merely at any moment a collision. without warning, sending the whole crew to a fatal crash and probably a death by burning?
Men will face intercepter machines; they will face anti-aircraft fire. These are to be expected, and a reasonable and effective defence can be devised. But I am certain that an effective balloon barrage, even if it does not attain 25,000 ft, will not only enormously increase the effectiveness of the intercepter machines and anti-aircraft guns but will definitely deter the raiding machines from even endeavouring to reach their objective During the war the German submarines believed that we had hung a net from Dover to Calais to catch them, and warily kept away. In fact, there was no such net, Long-Range Bomber Another very interesting aircraft, of which large numbers have been ordered, is the Vickers Wellington win-engined—geodetic—long-rang: bomber, with air-cooled radial eng-
Wellesley bomber, single engined forerunner of the Welling: ton, which attains a maximum level speed of 202 m.p.h. with a single-speed supercharger engine and has a range of 1,150 miles, is accelerated to 228 m.p.h. with two-speed supercharger engine, its range at cruising speed of 186 m.p.h. is augmented to 2,270 miles, and its load capacity considerably increased.
Engines mounted in the Wellington are Bristol Pegasus XVII 9-cylinder units, Each gives a maximum output for take-off at sea-level of 980 h.p. and maximum output, under full supercharge at 17,500 ft, of 900 h.p Thus powered, the Wellington has exceptional qualities of speed, load opacity and range, with accommodation alternatively for four or seven men. There is an enclosed cabin forward for the pilot, in front of the leading edge of the wings; and there are three gun position in the nose, midway between wings and tail in the upper deck of the fuselage, and in the extreme tail. The landing wheels retract backwards into the engine nacelles.
The wing span of this formidable new bomber is 86 ft. It is 61 ft. long and 18 ft. 9 in. in height on the ground. Details of its load and per: formance are official secret Flying-boat or Liner Interesting details are given in the "Evening Standard" of the report on the United States Maritime Commission on Aircraft and Merchant Mar-
Some data concerning the amount of horse-power required to carry passengers by steamer, airship and lying boat over the ocean Was worked Ow. A 40-seater flying boat of 50 tons all-up Weight, similar in "type to some now being constructed on both sides of ihe Atlantic, would require 1819 horse-Vowher per passenger. It would travel at a speed of 132 knots, whereas ihe Queen Mary type of liner, with 2,000 "passengers, requires up to 8,0 h.p. per passenger ior the same trip at only 29 knots.
The airship, with 100 passengers, requires 1,692 h.p. but could not travel at more than 69 knots.
Eighteen 40-seater flying boats built at a capital cost of £2,400,000 could carry as much traffic per year as the 210000000. liner.
Estimates are based on one crossing of the steamship per week; two 10 four crossings weekly of the dirigible (twelve of which would be needed at a cost of £10,000,000); and three crossings per day of the fying boat.
The Commission even goes so far as to recommend American shipowners not to build superliners, but io devote attention to high-speed ocean air transport.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.