Word: target
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...light blue ether above Fort Tilden, Rockaway Point anti-air defense base of Manhattan, soared, twisted, wobbled a deep blue cone of canvas, 15 ft. long, tapering in diameter from 5 ft. to 4 ft. Ahead, linked to the sky-target by a few scant hundred feet of rope, flew Air Lieut. Archie Smith in a Martin Bomber. From below anti-aircraft gunners launched torrents of gun fire, exploded thousands of pounds of powder into billions of cubic feet of gas. Sweated, toiled, emitted words peculiar to gunners...
Eighteen times, with the undeviating regularity of a sentry pacing his beat, Lieut. Smith towed his special high visibility target over their heads, he neither twisted, dived nor dodged. He flew at an average altitude of only 1,500 ft., the target trailing 300 ft. below. Cooly, Army anti-aircrafting gunners ignored all but four of his perambulations, loosed upon the target a total of 8,000 shots during those, scored five hits. Dauntlessly they loosed 8,000 more missiles, each costing $25, upon a second target, towed by another Air Service Lieutenant, scored 14 hits...
...shots to a hit), remarked that the effectiveness of anti-aircraft artillery is not judged by the number of enemy planes it may bring down but by its effect upon the morale of the enemy, forcing him to fly so high that he loses his effectiveness against his own target. Since the targets were only one-quarter the size of actual airplanes, it was felt that the land batteries did well to hit them...
From the opposing school of thought (those who believe anti-aircraft guns to be impotent) poured billows of scorn. It was pointed out that the targets had been dangled and dandled within a mere eight or nine feet of the guns, while an enemy fleet would never think of attacking at less than 10,000 feet. It was recalled that enemy planes would be carefully disguised as to color, and that dark blue is said to possess the highest possible air-target visibility. Nineteen successes in 16,000 trials were contrasted unfavorably with the chances for a zero in roulette...
...When planes attack, they travel about three times 33 miles an hour. There's a little difference in shooting at a slowly moving target and trying to hit one going 100 mi. an hour...