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Show DUELS IN AIR ARE THRILLING "Bulletin des Armees" Tells How French Fliers Risk Their Lives. HAVE NO RULES TO FOLLOW Success Is Won by the Fignter's Aerial Aer-ial Virtuosity and the Superiority of the Machine He Flies Some Flights. Paris. The Bulletin des Armees prints an article on aerial duels. As this publication is official, being issued is-sued solely to the troops, the details given may be accepted as literally correct and free from the exaggeration exaggera-tion often lent to aviation stories. "In April," the writer begins, "our aviators brought down thirty-one German Ger-man aeroplanes, while we lost only six. In March the numbers were thirteen thir-teen lost on our side and thirty-five by the Germans; seven, including three Fokkers, in one day. Our bombarding bom-barding squadrons make attacks on the German rear lines almost daily. "It is often asked how aeroplane fighting is carried on, whether any special tactics exist for attacking an enemy or for defending oneself against an adversary who suddenly comes in sight. The answer is negative. nega-tive. Aeroplane fighting is improvised impro-vised to suit the conditions. No defined de-fined method is employed, all being left to the pilot's presence of mind, coolness and decision. "Success is won by the fighter's aerial virtuosity and the superiority of the machine he flies. Individual qualities make the conqueror, Drops on His Foe. "A German champion, like Immel-mann, Immel-mann, the 'super-hawk,' over whom German papers wax so enthusiastic, has but one trick up his sleeve. He mounts as high as possible and turns round above his sector. Then when he catches sight of an adversary he lets himself fall upon him in a straight drop, and fires his machine gun as he passes. The fight is then over for him, whatever the result may have been. He makes off to his own lines and begins the same maneuver over again. "Navarre's way of fighting is altogether alto-gether different. He harries his enemy en-emy from every side. He envelops him in unexpected evolutions. To prevent pre-vent him from attacking, Navarre carries car-ries out the most fantastic leaps, swerves, and twistings, and then at the right minute pours in a stream Df bullets from his machine gun. He has no special tactics, but a marvelous marvel-ous variety of attacks and feints. He never leaves an enemy until he has brought him down, unless some unforeseen circumstance intervenes. And Navarre is not alone, he has many a competitor in the service. "The fighting aeroplane in our squadrons is one-seated, while the Germans almost always have two men In theirs. "In an aeroplane the sense of hear ing ts useless, the din of the motor deafening both pilot and observer. Birds can detect an aeroplane by its iound from afar and display fear, but the human bird has to depend upon Bight, and woe to the man who is taken by surprise! Fight at Close Range. "Aeroplane fighting is at close range, fifteen to twenty-five yards, if one wishes to make sure of hitting the mark with a quick firer. Of course there are exceptions. Navarre at Verdun, Ver-dun, when at a height of 14,000 feet, saw a very fast German aeroplane escaping es-caping and fired at 200 yards distance, almost in scorn, not expecting to touch his enemy. But down came the German machine. "Generally, however, Navarre tries to get as e-lose as possible to Pht. One day the wind was blowing a tempest from behind and a Fokker mis tlevins before Ulm. A ty.enty-five- mile chase took less than ten minutes, min-utes, Navarre keeping exactly in the wake of his foe. repeating every un-forseen un-forseen move that he made. "All the time the fleeing Fokker kept up a rearward fire from its mitrailleuse. mi-trailleuse. Bullets whizzed around Navarre, but none touched him, his motor alone received a scratch or two. Then, when near enough Navarre, Na-varre, who had not fired, opened with his machine gun and when twenty-five twenty-five bullets had sped the German fell. "As fighting is carried on so closely close-ly it sometimes happens that adversaries adver-saries get caught together. An enormous enor-mous three-seated German machine was recently out for its hundredth flight. It came across a French bi-plane bi-plane an observation, not a fighting machine and determined to demolish it; not a difficult job, as the German machine was heavily armed and more rapid than the French. "The Germans rained bullets on the biplane, which soon took fire. The two French aviators, recognizing that they must soon fall to inevitable death, threw their machine on the big German machine and there were five victims instead of two." |