Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/118





HE terrible and increasing mortality rate among our Army and Navy aviators is proportionately greater than in the flying corps of any large nation in the world in times of peace. Death after death among some of the finest officers in the Army and Navy seems to be necessary to shake the officials and people of the country into a realization of facts that have been repeatedly brought to their attention.

In the fulfillment of his duties, officer after officer has flown in antiquated and patched-up aeroplanes, knowing that the machine was unsafe and likely to collapse at any minute. These young men, splendid types of American manhood, have bravely sacrificed their lives that the United States may at last look the issue squarely in the face. Their death seems cruelly necessary to drive home the fact that the Army and Navy must be supplied with sufficient modern aeroplanes.

As this article is being written, the Army and Navy have, together, twenty machines. Of these twenty, six are in actual flying condition. The rest are out of commission, some temporarily, many permanently. We have now about fifty officer-aviators who are actually capable of flying a machine; yet Montenegro, a nation so small that we seldom hear of it, although it is at present fighting in the World War, has an aeronautical corps of fifty machines, and more than two hundred first-class aviators.

Our aeroplanes are, for the most part, hopelessly out of date. They are patched and worn. Some of them are two or three years old. Each officer should have one machine, which he—alone—should fly. If he breaks a part, he should supervise its repair, and when he takes it into the air again, he should know its condition. As it is, several officers fly the same machine. Students are taught to fly in it, and the result is usually much breakage. Everyone or no one supervises the repairs. Consequently the officer who is called upon to fly never knows the exact condition of his machine.