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Show AIRPLANES TO END THE WAR, SAYS MORGAN M'KAY, WHO IS TRAINING FOR II. S. SERVICE Steady nerves, cool judgment and reliability go more toward making up the equipment of a successful army aviator then the ability to loop the loop and do fancy tricks in the air, said Morgan McKay yesterday in an address ad-dress at tho Weber academy. Mr. McKay Mc-Kay is In the aviation service of the United States and is stationed at San Antonio, Texas, in training. He is being prepared for a battle plane, a machine with carries a ton and a half of weight, including three men, and is the real fighting man-o'-war of the air. His talk was consumingly Interesting. Mr. McKay was a former student of the academy, so he was well known to his audience. He described In detail the work at San Antonio. Twenty men are required on the ground to keep one man in the air. he said, and the training is very exacting. He described the tests which applicants for the service go through and stated that many meet their problems here, as the exactions are very rigorous. Ho told of one applicant who hadbeen flying fly-ing at county fairs and exhibitions in the middle west who came cock-sure and confident. He was tested and could not qualify. He was kept in the service, however. A French army officer visited the camp, Mr. McKay said, and told of the war and the aerial service. In speaking speak-ing of the proposed plan of America to put 150,000 aeroplanes into the field, he was dumbfounded. "One hundred and fifty thousand, parbleu! 1 Four hundred would be many, 4.000 would be colossal. One hundred and fifty thousand only God and the Americans caruconccive of such a figure," he said. Lecturers visit the camp regularly and give tall" on phases of the war. All of them ..arc of the opinion. Mr. McKay said,' that, the war will be a ldng one. "But we'lll win, boys; we'll win',, just as surely as the sun rises in the 'morning. It, will be a hard strug gle and will take months of careful preparation but the result will be the same." The ayjators in training will be perfectly per-fectly qualified to fly before they start for the front, Mr. McKay said. The training is being pushed as fast as possible, but-he government realizes the folly of improper preparation and has decided that a few months used in teaching will be fully repaid when the expert aviators take the air over the battle lines in France. In speaking of the French officer who visited the camp. Mr McKay said i he pictured a fleet of aeroplanes, say one thousand or more, attacking Berlin. "They could settle on the city like a flock of birds," he said, "and so overwhelm ' the place that resistance resist-ance would be-futile and impossible. In this way can, aeroplanes decide the war. With our thousands in the air over tho battloyjines we could present such a stupendous array of fighting force that the Germans would be j demoralized and would have to quit." j |
