NEW ATTEMPT PLANNED

Chronicle (Levin), 23 September 1946, Page 5

NEW ATTEMPT PLANNED

Press AssTi

Britain's Air Speed Record ' DE HAVILLAND JET PLANE

By Telegraph

i.-Copyrlght

Received Monday, 10.35 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 22. A new attempt to raise Britain's air speed record to the highest figure possible under the present limits of compressibility is likely in the coming week when a de Havilland Swaliow will attempt to improve the time of the Gloster Meteors over the Tangmere course. The de Havilland experimental , aircraft, whose wings and tail fin have been swept back to reduce the . drag and delay onset by shock waves at the speed of sound, is_ at present under test before being flown to Tangmere. Geoffrey de Havilland said: "If I did not believe the Swaliow could do it, I would not be making the attempt." The Swaliow is a scale model of £75,000 jet airliner de Havilland hope to operate. It was oflicially announced on September 28 tliat Group Captain E. M. Donaldson, of the Royal Air Force High Speed Flight, pilotting a Meteor V jet-propelled plane, established a new world air speed record of 616 miles an hour. Conditions for the flight were unfavourable. the air being bumpy, with light rain falling and the temperature 16 degrees centigrade under that desired —30 degrees. It was explained by Group Captain Donaldson at the time that each degree centigrade was worth a mile an hour, so that the result of the attempt would have been 16 miles an hour under those pbtainable under optimum conditions.