Flying machines would seem to be the safest of scouts. They could pass over the enemy’s country with as little direct danger—perhaps as unobserved—as a spy in disguise; yet their occupants would scarcely be subjected to the penalty accompanying discovery of a spy. They could easily study the movements of an opposing armed force: a study now frequently associated with great loss of life and hampering of effective handling of troops. They could watch for hostile fleets with relatively high effectiveness (under usual conditions), commanding distant approaches to a long coast line at slight cost. From their elevated position, they could most readily detect hostile submarines threatening their own naval fleet. Maximum effective reconnaissance in minimum time would be their chief characteristic: in fact, the high speeds might actually constitute an objection, if they interfered with thorough observation. But if air craft had been available at Santiago in 1898, Lieutenant Blue’s expedition would have been unnecessary, and there would have been for no moment any doubt that Admiral Cervera’s fleet was actually bottled up behind the Morro. No besieged fortress need any longer be deprived of communication with—or even some medical or other supplies from—its friends. Suppose that Napoleon had been provided with a flying machine at Elba—or even at St. Helena!
The applications to rapid surveying of unknown ground that have been suggested as possible in civil life would be equally possible in time of war. Even if the scene of conflict were in an unmapped portion of the enemy’s territory, the map could be quickly made, the location of temporary defenses and entrenchments ascertained, and the advantage of superior knowledge of the ground completely overcome prior to an engagement. The searchlight and the compass for true navigation on long flights over unknown country would be the indispensable aids in such applications.
During the current mobilization of the United States Army at Texas, a dispatch was carried 21 miles on a map-and-compass flight, the round trip occupying less than two hours and being made without incident. The machine flew at a height of 1500 feet and was sighted several miles off.
A dirigible balloon, it has been suggested, is comparatively safe while moving in the air, but is subjected to severe strains when anchored to the ground, if exposed. It must have either safe harbors of refuge or actual shelter buildings—dry docks, so to speak. In an enemy’s country a ravine or even a deep railway cut might answer in an emergency, but the greatest reliance would have to be placed on quick return trips from a suitable base. The balloon would be, perhaps, a more effective weapon in defense than in attack. Major Squier regards a flying height of one mile as giving reasonable security against hostile projectiles in the daytime. A lower elevation would be sufficient at night. Given a suitable telephotographic apparatus, all necessary observations could easily be made from this altitude. Even in the enemy’s territory, descent to the earth might be possible at night under reasonably favorable conditions. Two sizes of balloon would seem to be indicated: the scouting work described would be done by a small machine having the greatest possible radius of action. Frontiers would be no barrier to it. Sent from England in the night it could hover over a Kiel canal or an island of Heligoland at sunrise, there to observe in most leisurely fashion an enemy’s mobilizations.
German Gun for Shooting at Aeroplanes
(From Brewer’s Art of Aviation)
At the London meeting of the Institute of Naval Architects, in April, 1911, the opinion was expressed that the only effective way of meeting attack from a flying machine at sea would be by a counter-attack from the same type of craft. The ship designers concluded that the aeroplane would no more limit the sizes of battleships than the torpedo has limited them.
For the more serious work of fighting, larger balloons would be needed, with net carrying capacities perhaps upward from one ton. Such a machine could launch explosives and combustibles against the enemy’s forts, dry docks, arsenals, magazines, and battleships. It could easily and completely destroy his railroads and bridges; perhaps even his capital itself, including the buildings housing his chief executive and war office staff. Nothing—it would seem—could effectually combat it save air craft of its own kind. The battles of the future may be battles of the air.
There are of course difficulties in the way of dropping missiles of any great size from flying machines. Curtiss and others have shown that accuracy of aim is possible. Eight-pound shrapnel shells have been dropped from an aeroplane with measurably good effect, without upsetting the vessel; but at best the sudden liberation of a considerable weight will introduce stabilizing and controlling difficulties. The passengers who made junketing trips about Paris on the Clément-Bayard complained that they were not allowed to throw even a chicken-bone overboard! But it does not seem too much to expect that these purely mechanical difficulties will be overcome by purely mechanical remedies. An automatic venting of a gas ballonet of just sufficient size to compensate for the weight of the dropped shell would answer in a balloon: a similar automatic change in propeller speed and angle of planes would suffice with the aeroplane. There is no doubt but that air craft may be made efficient agents of destruction on a colossal scale.