The fact that bombs have again been dropped in Paris from a German aeroplane may possibly be regarded as a reply to the exploit of the airman from the British naval wing who hovered over Dusseldorf and dropped bombs on the Zeppelin sheds with results that seem to have been sufficiently satisfactory.
The immense utility of aircraft for scouting purposes with a view to the location of the enemy's positions would already seem to have been amply proven.
As actual fighting machines neither airships nor aeroplanes appear yet to have achieved anything very sensational, and it is quite possible that they will not do so.
Several German Zeppelins have been brought down and destroyed, and there is some reason to hope that these rigid dirigible airships, upon the performances of which the Germans are reported to have placed great store, will in their actual destructive power fall very far short of expectations.
It may be early yet to draw conclusions upon the point, but the vulnerability of these much-vaunted machines when coming within gun-fire has apparently been established, and it has to be remembered that the flying-machine which can effectively operate in all weathers has yet to be produced.
On paper the Zeppelins, with their special armament and bomb-dropping potentialities, have been represented as almost incalculably formidable weapons of destruction.
In practice they have yet to make good such claims.
Already, on the other hand, the speedy and hardy aeroplane, presenting a small surface as a target, has probably proved capable of doing in war all that was expected of it.
With the records for the types remaining as they are at present, the aeroplane, with its greater speed and climbing power, is a valuable weapon against the dirigible, despite the apt comparison of the two as battleship and destroyer.
Great Britain has shown a disposition to specialise in the matter of the hydro-aeroplane, or sea-plane, as it is sometimes called, and the arguments as to the value of these machines for scouting purposes in advance of a fleet seem fairly convincing.
The air-scout, it has been pointed out, can see the submarine when it is invisible to everybody else.
It is stated that in the manoeuvres of 1912, when a submarine attack was made up the Firth of Forth, the submarines got up to Rosyth unseen by anybody except the aeroplane pilots, who had kept them in sight the whole way.
• In order to facilitate the passage of river steamers one of the deck spans on the Balclutha traffic bridge has been raised two feet and a-half.
The contractors for the bridge extensions, acting under instructions from the Public Works Department, have forwarded a price for building a footway on the side of the bridge, as asked for by the residents of Balclutha, and there is every reason to believe that the Government will get the work done.
It will be some months yet before the extension on the north end of the bridge is completed, and in the meantime drivers of all vehicles, particularly motor cars, should traverse the bridge at a walking pace.
Traction engine traffic is stopped at the present time. - ODT, 30.9.1914.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
