The Editorial and Advertising Offices of "The Aeroplane" are at 166, Piccadilly, W. Telegraphic Address: AILERON, London. 'Phone : Mayfair 5407. The Editor cannot undertake to return unsolicited manuscripts, whether accompanied by stamps or not, though every endeavour will be made to do so. "The Aeroplane" is not connected with any other business at the same address, whether associated with Aeronautics or not. Subscription Rate, post free: Home, 3 months, 1/8; 6 months, 3/3; 12 months, 6/6. Abroad, 3 months 2,9; 6 months, 5/6; 12 months, 11/ Active Service News of the doings of the Royal Naval Air Service and of the Royal Flying Corps on active service filters through slowly, and by devious routes, but by piecing odd bits of information together one begins to learn a little of what is being done. So far as one can gather the Royal Flying Corps has been singularly fortunate in losing very few of its personnel, or, at any rate, the losses were smal! up to the time of the battle of the Marne, which is as far as Sir John French's despatch of last week took us. In the Casualty List published on Saturday last there ap pears the name of Lieut. V. S. E. Lindop, as being among the officers missing. Also, the relatives of Lieut. Vincent Waterfall have been informed that his body and that of his passenger-Lieut. Bayly is the name given-had been found and buried by Belgians, who duly communicated with the War Office. These latter casualties have not appeared in the official Casualty List, as they have not been sent in by the Army Headquarters in France. It will be remembered that early in the war it was reported that a British pilot had fallen into the hands of the Germans. It seems possible that Mr. Lindop was the officer to whom this report referred, and it may be that his was the grave described in the letter from Mr. Richard Harding Davis, for no mention is made therein of the pilot having a passenger with him; in fact, the German inscription on the wooden cross to "Herr Flyer" seems to indicate otherwise. Incidentally, it is well to point out here the kindly feeling which prompted those particular Germans, in the stress of war, to give one of our pilots decent burial and to go to the trouble of putting up a cross to mark his resting-place. One hears too much of German barbarity and not enough of the acts of chivalry and kindness which are performed by our enemies. All Germans are not savages, and all British, French, Belgian, and Russian soldiers are not saints. This is a subject to which one may refer at a later date. The known fact concerning the deaths of Mr. Waterfall and Mr. Bayly do not fit in with Mr. Harding Davis' letter, for they were found by a kindly Belgian who hid their bodies and buried them afterwards. Deeply as everyone will regret the deaths of three such promising young officers, yet, compared with the losses of some regiments, it appears that the Royal Flying Corps has not suffered unduly heavily, especially when one considers the nature of its service and the work it has accomplished. The R.F.C.'s Good Work. As to the work the R.F.C. has done, it will be remembered that on reading Sir John French's despatch it appeared as if there was a lack of information obtained for the British Headquarters by our air-scouts during the critical day of August 23rd at Mons. I will not guarantee the accuracy of the information I have received, but by combining scraps of news from various sources, casual remarks in letters from France, and second-hand conversations with people who have returned from the scene of war-many of them entirely unconnected with flying--one gathers the general impression that the Royal Flying Corps did the whole of the air work for the combined French and British Armies in the North. Apparently, all the best of the French military pilots were on the Eastern Frontier-that fatal magnet which drew to it all the best French troops, and but for the first instalment of the Notes. British Army and its mysterious support from the West, would have cost France at least another siege of Paris, and possibly the sack of the capital. All the crack French civilian aviators were hung up at Versailles, waiting for something to turn up and cursing their inactivity. Consequently, the majority of the French pilots in the North were the "tail of the team," so to speak. Anyhow, they did little or nothing, and seem to have consisted chiefly of the kind about which the French Press was so deeply concerned a few months before the war, the men who join the "Aviation Militaire" for the sake of the extra pay and the distinction of wearing the Aviation badge. A friend of mine, who knew the French service before the war, calls them "café loungers." It is no discredit to the French nation that such people exist, for we find the same type in this country and every other, but, thanks to the Department of Military Aeronautics and the staff of the Central Flying School, it would be difficult to discover any of them in the R.F.C. Anyhow, the R.F.C. had to do all the work for both armies, and, consequently, the majority of the pilots appear to have been working with General Joffre's Headquarters and not directly with the British force. This would account for our troops seeing very little of our aeroplanes, and also for Sir John French receiving from General Joffre the first notice of the overwhelming German forces approaching against him. As I ventured to remark last week, some official explanation of the situation might easily have been given if the Press Bureau had been anything more than an arbitrary and inefficient censoring establishment which cuts out authentic news which would be grateful and comforting to the British Public-who incidentally pays its wages-and passes vast quantities of absurd yarns and obvious lies sent in by news agencies of foreign origin. Fighting in the Air. Apart from its success in scouting it is interesting to learn that the R.F.C. has made a practice of attacking hostile aeroplanes whenever they appear. This is particularly noteworthy, because we have never officially paid any great attention to evolving fighting machines, apart from the R.A.F.'s ill-fated "F.E." which killed Mr. Haines. This year the Vickers works went seriously into the question of building gun-carriers for land work, and the Short Brothers evolved an experimental seaplane which carried heavier armament than anything in the air had ever done before. Also, various Henri Farmans were tried with assorted machineguns. All these types were slower than any ordinary machine used for scouting, and so it is improbable that any of them were used abroad, though one learns that Farmans armed with mitrailleuses have done well in the purely defensive work of patrolling over and round Paris. It seems probable, therefore, that the "chasse aux Boches"-or Germanhunting-as the French call it, has been done by ordinary Henri Farmans carrying a passenger armed with a rifle, by Blériots similarly with a passenger, or by our tractor biplanes-Avros and B.E.s-carrying a pilot only. It may be well to explain, for the benefit of new readers of this paper (there seems to be an astonishing number of them), that the Henri Farman, being propelier-driven, affords a clear field of fire all round in front, and that in some the passenger sits in front of the pilot so that he is still better placed. In the Blériots the passenger is behind the pilot, and also behind the trailing edge of the wings, so that he has a clear field of fire downwards on each side, and all the way round behind from side to side. In the tractor-drawn biplanes, however, in which the passenger sits in front, the propeller prevents him from firing forward, and the vertical struts between the planes limit his arc of fire sideways. Therefore, in this type seems more likely that the fighting is done by the pilot alone, who sits well back behind the planes and can fire easily over the side of the body-work as he passes over a slower enemy aeroplane which cannot climb so fast. At any rate, this was the view held by various officers of the R.F.C. before they went on active service. Their idea seemed to be to go up alone- partly because the machine would climb faster without a passenger, and partly because they would feel more at liberty to do as they pleased if they had no responsibility for anyone else's life--and to operate on the German aeroplanes with an ordinary long-barrelled revolver firing Service ammunition with a good solid manstopping bullet. They argued that a bullet from a modern automatic pistol would simply make a hole and do very little damage to anything it hit, whereas a real "man-stopper" might break something badly even if it missed the man. Of course, one can make a useful man-stopper by filing the nose off a modern bullet, but, for some quaint illogical reason, the use of real or artificial "Dum-dums" is forbidden, so they preferred the old soft lead bullet, and I fancy that when the history of the war comes to be written it will be found that most of the fighting in the air has been revolver work at close quarters. It may have been noticed that several officers-not N.C.O.S or men-who have told in letters home of fights in the air as observed by them from the ground specifically mention revolver fighting, and they probably know enough to differentiate between revolvers, automatic pistols, rifles, and machine-guns. A Tale of the R.F.C. Talking of armament reminds me of a story of the R.F.C. which deserves to go down to history. It has worked round to me in several slightly varied versions, but by reducing it to its least common multiple it is something like this: a was Let it be premised that the R.F.C., as such, is not fighting force, that is to say, the rank and file are not trained to fight as ordinary infantry, and the R.F.C. camps are, in the ordinary course of affairs, well behind the fighting line. so that they may be out of range of the most powerful guns, or of sudden irruption of hostile troops in case of the line being broken. The story goes that during the actions somewhere south of Mons, a certain camp of the R.F.C. going about its work in its usual way, cleaning engines, truing up planes, doing odd repairs and so forth, when word was brought in by an aviator returning from the field of battle that one of the numerous raiding parties of Uhlans was a few miles away. In the ordinary course of affairs the game would be to prepare to defend camp in case the Germans discovered it, and to "lie powerful doggo"-as Mr. Kipling calls it-in the hopes that it would not be discovered. The notion did not somehow appeal to this R.F.C. detachment, whose C.O. had ideas on the subject of aggressive defence. Thereupon there was a sweep round the camp for all instruments of a man-killing nature, and off went an assortment of pilots, observers, engine-fitters, riggers, and air-mechanics generally, armed with what rifles could be discovered, sundry revolvers and automatic pistols-on cars which are usually devoted to the peaceful transport of breakdown gangs. Guided by the original discoverer of the Uhlans, they fell upon those gentlemen hip and thigh, assisted by certain aeroplanes which cavorted overhead, dropping bombs, of varied kinds, and generally making themselves unpleasant. In the result, the Germans effected a rapid strategic retreat (as it would doubtless be described by the German Staff), a large number of them falling out by the way, and the rest vanishing from the district. After which the R.F.C. motor-car raiders went home to tea, unhurt and highly pleased with themselves. The names of those participating are unknown, and the whole story is an example of what might be told to the British Public by an intelligent Press Bureau. It makes a source. pretty companion to the tale of Commander Samson's exploit to officially by the Admiralty on Saturday. I love the Royal Naval Air Service very dearly, but I do not see why it should collect all the lime-light, therefore I hope my confrères of the daily Press will give this story some publicity. Whether with or without acknowledgment of its matters not, so long as some of the British Public who do not read aviation papers may be told something of the kind of stuff the creators of the Royal Flying Corps have madeout of men who six months or so ago were motor-mechanics, fitters, carpenters and tinkers-awful tinkers some of them. A New Fighting Force. This little incident, and Commander Samson's performance, suggests ideas. This has been called a motor war, and the splendid German organisation has shown us something of how motors should be used, and how they can be used. We in this country always learn to fight while a war is in progress as we did in South Africa, at great expense. Motors, like aeroplanes, were despised and rejected by the Great Ones at the War Office a few years ago, such as Sir Charles Hadden, Master-General of the Ordnance, who particularly discouraged such ungentlemanly things as oily engines. Hence, we went into this war with a pathetically chaotic system of motor transport. By the time the war is over we shall be quite strong in this department. Meantime, much can be done very quickly if we go to work properly. It may be remembered that recently some real genius on the daily Press-I think it was Mr. Alfred Stead, of the "Express"-remarked that what Belgium wanted was a motorcycle de Wet with aeroplane scouts. Expand his idea, equip a number of "de Wets" with armed and armoured motorcars, operating in conjunction with fast aeroplanes, and one has a very valuable mobile force, which will make hay with Germany's Uhlans. Our trouble in doing so would be to find sufficient big cars for the purpose. Thanks to our system of taxing motor-cars by horse-power we have evolved this. country numerous very fast, highly efficient small cars, up to 15.9 h.-p.--the point where the tax takes a jump upwards -but to get the required speed these cars are far too light to carry half a ton of ironmongery round their sides and half-a-dozen men and a couple of machine-guns in their interiors. One needs the old-fashioned Dietrichs, and Merks, and Gobrons, and Berliets for this job, though we could, of course, find a number of big Napiers and Rolls-Royces and Wolseleys, and, perhaps, some Daimlers would do, if the sleeve valve engine does not take too much nursing to stand knocking about by an untutored driver. There should be no difficulty about the personnel, for plenty of sportsmen of the right kind have volunteered for the Naval Brigade, and a useful link between the aeroplane scouts and the car section could be formed by employing some of the Army officers belonging to the Naval Airship Section, for whom there seems otherwise small chance of distinguishing themselves, seeing that the existing Army airships, of which our last War Minister but one was so proud, are as useless as Colonel Seely himself in this war. If anything of this kind is to be done it will have to be done mighty quickly, for in two months' time at most the winter weather will have made the French and German roads practically impassable, especially when they have been cut up by whole armies passing over them. If one had time to build special vehicles one could make a fine job of them, using the largest possible wheels and the biggest diameter tyres, like those "out-size" Palmer and Dunlop tyres sionally, chiefly on the cars of affluent Hebrews-few others can afford them-but as only standard type cars are available the number of wrecks owing to insufficient ground clearance would be colossal. one Accelerating Aeroplane Production. sees occa If we are going to develop the system which that brief official communication from the Admiralty suggests it is obvious that more and more aeroplanes will be needed, especially as we have to go on making good the wastage of war, and to supply machines for the air scouts of the new armies we shall be sending out in a few weeks, and for months afterwards. (Foreign readers please note that the British 1 Firth's Aircraft Steels Used by the Leading Aeroplane and Engine Builders. 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Our Army is Empire has not really started in earnest yet. only just beginning to take an interest in things.) The supply of these aeroplanes is a fairly big proposition, and something like standardisation is necessary. Yet even standardisation is an evil thing if it is going to hang up deliveries just when they are most needed. I gather from various sources that the B.E.2 type biplanes, which were designed by Mr. de Havilland, have won high favour on active service. This paper has always held that they are magnificent flying machines, and they are vastly improved by certain alterations consistently. suggested in this paper-such fitting ailerons instead of warping the wings, and fitting properly strengthened rudders and elevators. as In the past I have known the B.E.2 fairly well, and those defects in its earlier types which have been pointed out to me by those who know more than I do, and have been criticised in this paper, have been rectified in the b. L.2c., but there are new things in the latest type which are nominally improvements, but are actually complications, and those complications are going to delay deliveries from firms who are starting to make these machines for the first time. In all humility I submit to those responsible for ordering these machines that there is perhaps a way in which much time may be saved-at any rate it is worth trying. Let each of those firms who are known to be capable of doing decent work be asked to build a machine which is aero-dynamically exactly the same as a B. E.2c, but let the firm be allowed to build it in its own way, subject only to using certain standard sizes in nuts and bolts, wires, and so forth. Let the wing curve and all general dimensions be exactly the same as in the B.E.2c., but leave the firm free to build the wings, fuselage, and control surfaces as it pleases, let it fix them and the chassis together in its own way, and especially let the firm make its own control gear. Without going into details which it would be inadvisable to disclose, one can safely say that an ordinary commonsensical aeroplane designer could in this way save 50 per cent. in time, and 20 per cent. in cost, on the production of his first machine, simply by using easily obtainable materials and fittings which would be just as good and as strong as those which have to be specially made at great expense of time and money, because the official designerswho have evolved their pet fittings without regard to eitherinsist on them. The officers who fly want these machines because they fly well and stand up to their work in spite of being left out in the open, but they do not care whether they are held together by bolts of one size or shape or another, so long as they do hold together. Incidentally, it would not take a genius to improve many of the details, especially in the control gear, so that if my suggestion is adopted it may very possibly produce a better machine. Anyhow, it will produce quick deliveries of a certain number of machines while special parts are being made to the official designs. are Meantime, those firms whose designs are in favour turning out vast quantities of machines, and one is glad to see that virtue is receiving its reward, though, of course, all this rush for deliveries of standard patterns means that the real progress of aviation is absolutely at a standstill, for no one can afford the time to experiment with new and improved types. However, when it is all over, and the place where Berlin now stands has been levelled out into a nice flat smooth landing place for aeroplanes-as a standing or perhaps one should say a recumbent-monument to the memory of Prussian militarism, perhaps we shall be able to make up for lost time out of the indemnity Germany will have to pay.-C. G. G. CELLON THE DOPE OF PROVED EFFICIENCY. CELLON, LTD., 17, OLD BROAD STREET, E.C. Telegrams: "AJAWB LONDON." Telephone: 5359 London Wall. 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