RESOURCES AT GOVERNMENT'S COMMAND. Fifteen aeroplane manufacturers, with a combined capital of $30,000,000 and a total capacity of 175 machines a week, organized and placed all their resources at the command of the government. The organization provided for the interchange of ideas and plans and for the standardization of manufacture, which resulted in a material increase in output. One hundred and seventy-five machines a week should give us, in a year, 9100. And there are other conditions which may modify the estimate both favorably and unfavorably. There is, for instance, a limit to the amount of seasoned lumber available in this country of the peculiar type and quality needed for airplane construction. Provision must be made for the future in this respect. All-steel machines have been made and used in Europe to some extent, but no metal alloy has been developed which is likely to take the place of wood in general construction. The manufacturers developed some interesting things along these lines which were not given to the public. In the Spring of 1917 the fighting in the air took on an entirely new interest abroad, because of the German policy of painting their machines most grotesque patterns. They seemed to have taken this idea from the old American Indian custom of painting their faces to frighten their opponents, or else the fancies of the German airmen were allowed to run riot with vivid color effects. British pilots daily brought home from over the lines new reports of fantastic creations encountered amid the clouds. The gayest feathered songsters that came north with the Spring did not rival the variegated hues of the harlequin birds that rose daily from the German airdromes. The coming of this fantastic order of things in the air was first heralded by a squadron of scarlet German planes. It then was noticed that some of the enemy machines were striped about the body like yellowjackets. GAUDY TASTES OF AIRMEN. Nothing appeared too gaudy to meet the tastes of the enemy airmen, who seemed to have been given carte blanche with the paint brush. There were green planes with yellow noses, silver planes with gold noses, khaki-colored planes with greenish-gray wings, planes with red bodies, green wings and yellow stripes, planes with red bodies and wings of green on top of blue, planes with light blue bodies and red wings. Virtually all the gaudiest machines were in red body effects, with every possible combination of colors for their wings. Some had one green wing and one white; some had green wings tipped with various colors.