15
M 696
Empire Air Day.
By Joseph Martin.
Spectacular Displays.
Empire Air Day and the coming of age of the Royal Air Force as
a separate service were jointly celebrated on Saturday, the 20th of May, at 78 aerodromes in various parts of Great Britain.
For many
years the air pageant staged by the Royal Air Force at Hendon near London was the most thrilling event of the season, but for various
For one thing, the terrific in- reasons it had to be abandoned. crease in speed of the military machines made some of the events, if not impossible, at any rate too dangerous to carry out in such a small space as was available at the Hendon aerodrome.
How much
What London lost by this the country gained, and more beside. For now, instead of one monster pageant at Hendoh, there are scores of most impressive pageants staged all over the country. they are appreciated may be gathered from the fact that the total number of visitors at the sixty-three military and fifteen civil aerodromes where the displays were staged this year was estimated at about a million. More than five thousand aircraft, of a large number of types, were on parade, and the Royal Air Force, in their routine life on the ground as well as in the air, were "at
home" to the enormous crowds of visitors.
What appealed most to the spectators was the actual flying. At one aerodrome near London a special feature of the display was a mass take-off by 27 Supermarine Spitfires, the worlds fastest fighter. Their speed and manoeuvrability was shown in a spec- tacular manner when nine of these wonder-planes performed Squadron drill, followed by a concerted attack on a set-piece on the aerodrome and, later, when six of them attacked three Fairey Battle bombers in a mock air engagement.
To illustrate the speed-range of the Spitfire there was an One Spitfire flew low over exhibition of slow and fast flying.