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Show PerformdnceiVersus Promise In Oar Air Program - Charges that" the Unijted States Government is months behind in its airplane program were made at a public meeting of the Aeronautical Society of America, held in. New $prk on April 4. At this meeting a'refkirt of nearly twenty thousand thous-and words was subinittSd by a special committee headed by Ms. Leon, Catemen, Vice President of the Society and .associate ttltor for the American Society So-ciety of Mechanical ErjjBneers. While this report was based in part on itttppaper statements and interviews inter-views with Congressmesvand Senators, the Committee Commit-tee is understood to JiaVje had direct sources of information, in-formation, and to have'rjiched its conclusions in conclusions con-clusions in consemencVof its own investigations. Since members of the Society have repeatedly offered of-fered their service8ttoltHe Government without avail and hjave found it difficult to secure official information,' inform-ation,' the Committee deeded that the only corrective of mistakes was "pitiless publicity." "At the public meetingJ.the following allegations, among .others, were made: "" First That the Government has steadfastly re-,. fused to utilize the services of engineering experts "most capable of working out the best practicable "jairplane motors. Second That Governriient officials have continually continu-ally made extravagant jctaims q what they intended to do, instead of availing themselves of models already proved practical. -. ' - ,ThircThatGovernment"officials, in order to conceal deficiencies in aircraft production, have misrepresented mis-represented facts. In emphasizing .the dangers and delays consequent upon the Government's failure to use available experts. ex-perts. Mr. Cammen statedthat it had not bee.n proved "that the Liberty. jnotor3as'"unqualif ied "success. He also alleged that many of the accidents in training , air pilots were avoidable by the proper arrangement of schedules and by allotting sufficient space for men in training to fly in. Inasmuch as the State of Texas is greater in area than all of Belgium and France combined, there seems to be space, ,to be had; but Mr. Cammen failed to recognize the necessity of schooling pilots in groups, and the real, solution in better equipment (such as parachutes) and in better teaching. Another deficiency, alleged is failure to train men in advance in auxiliary duties, such as photography, map sketching, signaling, and machine gun operations. Another member of the Committee, Mr. Thomas A. Hill, attacked, certain statements which had been officially, made. ..He.' declared 'that such statements as'thatrmaqhine production had been solved and the aircraft industry fully developed were untrue at the time they were made and were known by Germany to be untrue. Declaring, that the original program called for the production of twelve thousand planes by July 1 of this year, he said, that it was now announced an-nounced in the Senate that by that time there could be only thirty-seven planes delivered, and that this is the situation after an expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars or aircraft production and after this country has been in the war for a year. Mr. John Q. Tilson, a Representative in Congress from Connecticut, attributed the delay to the inclination inclina-tion of the Government, to experiment rather than to use machines already proved successful. The President of the Aeronautical Society, Mr. Frederick Barker, announced the belief of the Society So-ciety that the time had come for the publication of the real facts, in order that' the tremendous force of public opinion might be exerted in pressing the Government to reform its methods" of aircraft production. Some of this criticism would have been more effective ef-fective if delivered in better temper and without being tainted by an effort to 'question motives. It would have been also no less effective if it had been accompanied by a recognition of the vast amount of unselfish service that has been rendered to the Government Gov-ernment by men who have given their time and strength to the development of our air program. Some of this criticism is due to disappointment 'of expectations for which the Government itself was not responsible. Nevertheless, as a sign of impatience impa-tience at delay and of urgency for speed and for the utilization of every resource such criticism is .a wholesome sign. The Government would do well to take the public into its confidence as far as possible. Americans can stand bad news, but they cannot profitably remain in a state of false security. The Outlook. |