Leeway in Air-Power
The information given to the House of Lords last week by the Secretary of State for Air, Lord De L'Isle and Dudley, if anything deepened the anxiety created by the statement of the Under-Secretary in the House of Commons the week before. The plain fact is that, quite apart from paucity of numbers, British aircraft, both bombers and fighters, are inferior in performance to the corresponding Russian machines. The superiority of the Russian MIG 15 jet fighter to either current British or current American types has been demonstrated in Korea, and though with the Hunter and the Swift we might swing the balance in our favour Lord De L'Isle and Dudley sounded the necessary caution that by the time those types are in full production the Russians may have evolved something better' still. It is little consolation to know that the Russians owe their advantage in both fighters and bombers to their adoption, and subsequent improvement, of the Rolls Royce Nene engine, of which they were allowed to purchase twenty-five in 1947. In the delta and swept-back wing airframes they are again ahead of this country. Cordial as our relations with the United States are, it is anything but satisfactory that we should at the moment be almost wholly dependent on that great Power for both air-defence and air-offence in Western. Europe. The extent to which that is true is alarmingly indicated by the statement made by the Chief of the Imperial Staff, Sir William Slim, in New York on Sunday that Great Britain possessed an air force much larger than that of the rest of Europe (Western Europe was no doubt meant) pdt together. The super- priority which the Government is according for particular types of fighters and bombers is abundantly justified. Even so it must be many months before the grounds for serious concern disappear.
Previous page
