An article in Wednesday's Time gives full particulars of the
extraordinary progress made in aviation, apart from air- ships, in Germany in 1913. The National Flying Fund up to December 15th, 1913, had received £361,725, as compared with £245,316 received and expended by the French National Fund The methodical way in which the Germans have gone to work is shown in the expenditure of the fund. They have sought to encourage the constructors of aeroplanes in exact propor- tion to the actual achievement of the pilots trained upon their machines. Nineteen firms of constructors have been selected to train five pilots each, receiving a premium of £400 for each pilot on hie obtaining the higher certificate, the amount to be spent in 1913 and 1914 being £87,613. A sum of £107,975 is allotted to prizes and bonuses per hour flown. Thus Herr Stoeffier received £5,000 for flying 1,300 miles under twenty- four hours, and six others received prizes ranging from £3,000 to £500 for flights of from 935 to 731 miles within the twenty- four hours. As a general result, up to February 10th one-hour fligbte had been made by 369 pilots, and so on in a male dropping to two pilots for flights from ten to sixteen hours. The other items include £38,905 for insurance of pilots- 361 were insured in 1913—and compassionate allowances to the relatives of victims of accidents, and £24,050 for flying centres and seaplane stations. The Daman to be derived from these facts and figures is summed up by the writer when he says that the world, including France, is learning that Germany "believes in" aeroplanes as well as in airships.
