From this it can be seen that if a plane flew 1445 yards in front of the firing ship at 1000 feet, she would get into the trajectory of the projectile. The data for this formula can be obtained for any gun from the range tables, and will always keep the plane above the projectile, as it is accurate for the straight path and thereafter the curve is down, or away from the aircraft. A safety allowance should be added to this to provide for high shots and air disturbance.

VII. ESCORTS

Escorting surface craft and submarines has been one of the most important duties performed by aircraft. There were almost no cases of submarines attacking a convoy when there were aircraft present, as the German commanders always submerged when a plane was seen or heard. The Dutch and Channel convoys, and, towards the end, the French coastal convoys, were nearly always escorted by planes as well as surface craft.

Dirigibles are more suitable for convoying than planes, owing to the greater ease with which they can remain over the convoy. This obtains always, provided no contact is made with the enemy's aircraft, when dirigibles would probably be shot down.

Pilots must remember that the mission of escort craft is to get the convoy to its objective, and must not leave their station for any reason except motor failure. There is no excuse for chasing an enemy sighted on the horizon, and then have a hostile submarine come up and get several ships.

The tactics of escorting convoys, scouting, searching for mines and submarines, etc., were brought to a high state of perfection under Commander Kenneth Whiting, U. S. Navy, at our North Sea Air Station at Killingholme. The deep sea (submarine and mine search) and the convoy squadrons were always in the air; the latter escorting convoys having as many as 150 ships. About 6200 ships were convoyed by our planes from this one station, in the less than four months of our régime, with only one ship. sunk, and this when the escort planes were down with motor trouble. This was done in the most active submarine zone, the East Coast of England. Letters from the Admiralty and the Vice Admiral commanding that part of the coast, testify to the British Navy's high opinion of the importance of this work.

[COPYRIGHTED]

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

THE TORPEDOPLANE

THE NEW WEAPON WHICH PROMISES TO REVOLUTIONIZE NAVAL TACTICS

By HENRY WOODHOUSE

Author of The Text-Book of Military Aeronautics, The Text-Book of Naval Aeronautics, The Aircraft's Part in Beating the U-Boat,

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Vice President of the Aerial League of America, etc.

Among many new devices which the armistice prevented the Royal Air Force from putting into use against the enemy was the torpedo-aeroplane. It is considered to be of even greater potential value than the submarine, and would doubtless have proved astonishingly efficient. The enemy has good reason to be thankful for having escaped this new offensive weapon, which was ready for active service only a little while before the cessation of hostilities. The torpedo-aeroplane is a development of the torpedocarriers, which were first successfully employed in action by the R. N. A. S. at the Dardanelles in 1915, and were subsequently used against us by the Germans in 1917, when they were thus enabled to sink three of our merchant ships off the South-East Coast. The torpedo carried by torpedoaeroplanes is of a small size as modern torpedoes go, and weighs half a ton."

The above quotation from the Illustrated London News was accompanied by two photographs of torpedoes being dropped from single motored Sopwith biplanes of the type which are launched from British aerodrome ships.

When Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, U. S. N., returned to the United States after nearly two years of service with the British Grand Fleet, he made two main recommendations, as follows:

(1) That the United States should continue to use submarines for defence;

(2) That the United States should build new types of vessels equipped with aeroplanes able to attack fleets at close range with torpedoplanes.

When Admiral Rodman appeared before the House Committee on Naval Affairs, on January 3, 1919, he spoke further of the torpedoplane, as follows:

It is also unqualifiedly true that we will also have to have entirely new types of vessels, different from any we ever had, to carry aeroplanes, both for scouting and defensive work. It is extremely difficult to hit an aeroplane with any gun we now have.

The British have developed a plane to carry a torpedo. If we had in our fleet ships equipped to carry 15 planes fitted with torpedoes, there is no question that if we could get in close proximity to the enemy's fleet, we could operate very successfully, especially against battleships.

THE BRITISH TORPEDOPLANES

The first account of Great Britain's torpedoplanes was given in the following article which appeared in the London Daily Mail for December 27, 1918:

The mystery aeroplanes of the British Navy, which during the fighting were one of its most jealously guarded secrets, have been specially described by an expert who has had full opportunities for studying the craft. The mystery aeroplane was designed to do from the air more effectively and more swiftly the work formerly allotted to our torpedo-boats. The enemy had devised such successful protection of harbors and ships against our torpedo-boats and submarines that it was only with the gravest risk that we could approach within 30 miles of Kiel and other German fortified ports. But for the newest peril the enemy had no reply.

The news of our discovery of a means of attack that was immune from mine dangers and too swift in its operation to be held off by gunfire reached the ears of the enemy, and is believed, in one quarter at least, to have helped the Huns to the decision of surrender.

Had not hostilities ceased so suddenly these machines would have operated effectively against Kiel harbor and the German warships in their lair. The efficacy of the weapons will be realized when the operation is explained. One of these mystery aeroplanes, espying its enemy, makes a sudden dive from the clouds at 150 miles an hour, levels out at 50 feet above the surface, discharges a torpedo directly at the enemy ship at the right moment, after which the pilot pulls back his joy-stick and disappears into the clouds as suddenly as he appeared. The operation is so swift that the enemy has little chance of training a gun on the assailant. In one of these attacks a British airman torpedoed and sank a Turkish troopship containing 3000 troops.

When the idea was first conceived of having an aeroplane to carry an ordinary torpedo such as is used on the submarine, technical difficulties almost defeated the project, until a northern designing firm got hard at work in conjunction with the Air Ministry. The difficulty was not so much of lifting a torpedo as of ensuring that the action of discharging the torpedo was carried out with accuracy of aim and with safety to the pilot. Experiments were carried out in face of great difficulties and perils.

On one occasion when the experiment of discharging a torpedo from an aeroplane was made, the lightening of the aeroplane had such a serious

effect on the latter that the wings collapsed and the pilot was hurled to sudden death. In another case when the torpedo had been discharged, it hit the water at an awkward angle, and ricochetting over the surface, rose and demolished the aeroplane which had not risen out of the way. This discharging of a torpedo was no light risk when the torpedo was of full size, weighing anything up to a ton-three times the weight of the machine in which Blériot first crossed the English Channel.

A good deal of practice and patience was needed to make torpedo attacks from aeroplanes a success, and it is a tribute to the indomitable perseverance of our naval pilots that they have at length developed some formidable squadrons with special efficiency in this new work. These wonderful aeroplanes can go up from land or from the deck of a ship, and can descend on the sea and float until help is brought by wireless. When the German Fleet surrendered, an aeroplane "mothership" with 20 of these machines in its bosom met the Huns 50 miles out at sea, and had any tricks been tried it would have been simple work for a score of mystery aeroplanes to have leapt into the air and torpedoed the best part of the ships. This mystery or "Cuckoo" aeroplane-so called because of its weakness for laying eggs in other people's nests-is one further testimony to British engineering ability and resourcefulness of our navy.

REAR ADMIRAL FISKE INVENTED THE TORPEDOPLANE Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. N., conceived the idea of a torpedo-carrying aeroplane in the winter of 1910-1911 as a means of defending the Philippine Islands, and discussed the idea. with the General Board of the navy. He was in charge of the "War Plan Section" of the General Board, U. S. Navy, and in that capacity suggested that the Philippines could be defended against invasion by means of a large number of aeroplanes which would drop bombs on enemy boats going ashore from the transports and on men who might be landed, and that by using aeroplanes of a larger size it would be possible to drop torpedoes from them which would sink the men-of-war and the vessels of the invading fleet.

In April, 1912, Rear Admiral Fiske applied for patent on the torpedoplane, which was granted in July, 1912, by the U. S. Patent Office.

THE ITALIAN EXPERIMENTS OF 1912

The Italians were the first to make experiments in dropping weights from an aeroplane, with a view of evolving a method of launching torpedoes. Captain Alessandro Guidoni, Royal Italian Navy, using a 1910 Farman biplane equipped with floats, made. a number of experiments at an Italian naval base in 1912-1915.