MORE AIRCRAFT.
[To THE EDITOR or TEl " SPECTATOR.']
Sre,—We have much pleasure in enclosing a note dealing with a suggestion for increasing the country's output of air- craft. The note explains itself. We should be much obliged if you would be good enough to publish it, as we are anxious to get into immediate touch with all those whom the matter may interest. We need hardly mention that, if we ask you to publish the note, or the substance of it, it is because the matter is one which is beyond private interest and because its sponsors have not the slightest financial interest in its success.
F. N. MAnna, Col.
The recent remarkable article by Mr. H. Cl. Wells on the subject of employing offensive aircraft on a large scale with a view of ending, or considerably shortening, the war has given rise to much discussion and has aroused a very great amount of public interest. While there is a general agreement regarding the principle of Mr. Wells's suggestion, tho question has boon raised -whether it would be possible to build in time, to achieve the end which Mr. Wells has in view, a fleet of aeroplanes of the magni- tude which he advocates. This possible difficulty has now been met and overcome in a manner both practical and patriotic by Mr. J. A. Whitehead, of 24 St. James's Street, London, an English- man who has had a considerable previous manufacturing ex- perience in America.
Realizing the value of providing the country with a great number of aircraft with as little delay as possible, Mr. Whitehead has prepared a plan whereby this could be done without inter- fering either with the ordinary aeronautical industry or with the production of other munitions of war, and which would at the same time relieve the aeronautical department of the War Office and of the Admiralty of considerable initial and detail work. The plan has been submitted to Colonel P. N. Maude, C.B., late R.E., and to Mr. L. Blin Desbleds, consulting aeronautical engineer, who has for the last few months insistently drawn attention to the necessity of a really great aerial offensive. Both these authorities, as well as many others, have satisfied themselves as to the practicability of the plan.
It is of course obvious that, in the present state of international politics, it would be inadvisable to give full publicity to the details of the suggestion, but all those interested in the obvious importance of increasing the country's output of aircraft, whether from a patriotic or industrial point of view, can have private information from Mr. Whitehead at the above address. Colonel F. N. Maude and Mr. L. Blin Desbleds have also consented to explain technical points to bona fide inquirers, and communica- tions to these gentlemen can be addressed to 39 Viotoria Street, Westminster.
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