onventional machine offer attractive targets: both may be put out of
action readily, and the disablement of the motive power of an enemy's
craft, be it torpedo-boat, battleship, or aeroplane, immediately places
the same at the assailant's mercy.

Nevertheless, of course, the disablement of the airman brings about
the desired end very effectively. It deprives the driving force of its
controlling hand; The aeroplane becomes like a ship without a rudder: a
vessel whose helmsman has been shot down. It is unmanageable, and likely
to become the sport of the element in which it moves. It is for this
reason that aviators have been urged to direct their fire upon the men
and mechanism of a dirigible in the effort to put it out of action.
An uncontrolled airship is more likely to meet with its doom than an
aeroplane. The latter will inevitably glide to earth, possibly damaging
itself seriously in the process, as events in the war have demonstrated,
but a helpless airship at once becomes the sport of the wind, and anyone
who has assisted, like myself, in the descent of a vessel charged with
gas and floating in the air, can appreciate the difficulties experienced
in landing. An uncontrolled Zeppelin, for instance, would inevitably
pile up in a tangled twisted ruin if forced to descend in the manner of
an ordinary balloon. Consequently the pilot of a dirigible realises to
the full the imperative urgency of keeping beyond the point-blank fire
of aerial mosquito craft.

The assiduity with which British aviators are prepared to swarm to the
attack has been responsible for a display of commendable ingenuity
on the part of the German airman. Nature has provided some of its
creatures, such as the octopus, for instance, with the ways and means
of baffling its pursuers. It emits dense clouds of inky fluid when
disturbed, and is able to effect its escape under cover of this screen.

The German aviator has emulated the octopus. He carries not only
explosive bombs but smoke balls as well. When he is pursued and he finds
himself in danger of being overtaken, the Teuton aviator ignites these
missiles and throws them overboard. The aeroplane becomes enveloped in
a cloud of thick impenetrable smoke. It is useless to fire haphazard
at the cloud, inasmuch as it does not necessarily cover the aviator. He
probably has dashed out of the cloud in such a way as to put the screen
between himself and his pursuer.

In such tactics he has merely profited