© Underwood ci: Underwood 

 AN AIRPLANE IN THE) CATERPILLAR STAGE OF ITS EVOLUTION 



Before it receives its wings, the flying machine's motor mechanism is thoroughly tested. 

 All the big plants where these" craft are being made are under the protection of our "soldiers, 

 one of whom is to be seen on guard in the foreground of this picture. 



sources of the nation, and the ingenuity 

 and enterprise of our people, the selec- 

 tion and training of a matchlessly skilled 

 and intrepid personnel to man our sky 

 fleets when they are completed present 

 problems of perhaps even greater in- 

 tricacy. The task of providing men has 

 required not so much a broadcast recruit- 

 ing as a careful, intensive selection among 

 various isolated classes of specialists and 

 the upbuilding of nearly a dozen courses 

 of training as widely different as black is 

 from white. 



We are apt to think of the air service 

 only in the terms of aviators, little realiz- 

 ing that for every aviator there must be 

 nearly a score of other men — psycholo- 

 gists, factory inspectors, photophysicists, 

 welders, expert enginemen — and so on 

 down through a long list. All such men 

 are truly specialists ; they are scattered 

 very thinly through society, but must be 

 sought with the utmost care and given a 

 specialized course of training to adapt 

 their present skill to the intricacies of 

 aircraft work. 



NEEDS DIFFICULT TO EORESEE 



Needs for such men are most difficult 

 to foresee at a glance ; in fact, they are 

 apt to become suddenly evident as the 

 situation unfolds. One day, for instance, 

 the Equipment Division will complete its 

 analysis of requirements and put in a re- 

 quest for several thousand trained fac- 

 tory inspectors, vitally necessary to ap- 

 prove the material purchases of about 

 $350,000,000 entrusted to this division. 

 Obviously, this is difficult, painstaking 

 work, requiring the selection of men of 

 experience from a field not very large. 



Photophysicists may be the next neces- 

 sity — fast news photographers trained in 

 the speed of journalism and able to con- 

 vert a plate from an airplane into a print 

 ready for the General Staff within ten 

 minutes' time. They must be almost 

 hand-picked from the newspaper offices 

 of the country, creating indeed a void 

 here, but at the same time becoming the 

 only authorized photographers of all 

 Uncle Sam's military operations, both for 



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