"H.P.'s"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 207, 21 May 1918, Page 7

"H.P.'s"

BRITAIN'S GIANT BOMBING MACHINES. (By Richard George, in the "Daily j . • . Mail.") It was at tbe timo tho German Fokkor first mado its appearance in English ! newspapers that stories of a huge now British aeroplane began to be whispered. A fellow-journalist one day asked if 1 had any idea bow many people had been up fora trial trip iu a very remarkable flyinp; machine. ■ "Six?" I suggested dubiously. ! said he, with a superior j sort of Binile. It mounded incredible, but it was a fact. Twenty-one pcoplo were stowed aboard a Handley-Pago and taken to a height of more than seven thousand feet. I believo tbo trip is still n record; and that it marked one of the greatest . aerial triumphs of tho war is indisputable. It mean that, after months and months of study, calculation, and experiment on the part of an inventor, Frederick Hand-ley-l'age. this country was' first in tho field with a really first-class big bombing machine. ■ The Italian Caproni had still to fly; tbo German Gotha did not exist, except, perhaps, in nebulous paper form. Promise having been translated into proof, the Admiralty took over tho ''Handleys," or "H.P.'s," for the Naval Air Service. • . Now the Hun is j list beginning to feel Ihe full forco of this invention. The "Haiidleya" aro taking a lion's share in the present furious "reprisal" bombing that the enemy has called down upon his head. Two years ago the "H.P.'s" began to "put tbe wind up" the German fighting forces; now, provocation having passed all bounds, tho Rhine towns aro experiencing what it is like to have death and destruction'' tumbling upon fiiem from ' the ni;:lit skies. I Months ago, by reason of a pilot losing bis wny iu the fog, tbo Germans enmo into possession of a complete HandleyI'ngo machine, and it is evident that they fashiuned the Gotha upon this prizo. But the "11.P." is a far better finished machine than tbo Gotha, and it is also rather larger. Tho maohino's length "over all" is seventy odd feet, and its wings fold back so as to occupy less space in shed or hangar,