PLASTIC PLANES

Evening Star, Issue 24284, 27 August 1942, Page 6

PLASTIC PLANES

The announcement from Washington that a plastic warplane has been delivered to the U.S.A. navy and is to ho subjected to . test flights marks a further step towards the greater use of plastics in trite construction of aircraft, automobile bodies, eic. Tlie fuselage of the plane which is to undergo navy tests is stated to embrace i in its construction 90 per cent, plastics and fO per cent, metals, and should the experimental craft come successfully through its tests the U.S.A. navy authorities intend ordering a number of plastic warplanes to be mass produced. Although little has been hoard recently of the use of plastics for structural purposes in aircraft fuselages, much research and development activity has pervaded the field of plastics in Great Britain, U.S.A.,

and on the Continent, says the ‘Dunlop Bulletin.’ The Washington announcement is, however, of considerable significance, for it’ shows that developments in U.S.A.. in regard to the use of plastic material for aircraft construction have advanced considerably since the first airplane with moulded plastic wings and fuselage was built and ilown successfully in that country four years ago. The fuselage of that experimental five-passenger plane was moulded in 2h 35min. It was reported at the time that by the adoption of the moulded plastic type of fuselage, thus eliminating all riveting, nine men could make an airplane wing in two hours, while another nine men, using different moulds, could in the same time make the fuselage. The experimental plane, built by the Clark Aircraft Company, stood up to long test (lights under varying weather and climatic , conditions. ~ , . H was announced in 1940 that fom U.S.A. aircraft corporations were working intensively on the problems associated with moulded aircraft fuselages and wings. The outcome of their research is that the U.S.A navy is now to subject a plastic warplane to trial flights with a view to its adoption and use, if the low-wing monoplane meets wartime requirements. The so-called plastic that is being used in the construction of experimental airplanes is not—as most people would thinkmade by pouring a plastic into a hollow mould. It is fabricated with wood fibres in the form of thin veneers bonded together with plastics under heat and tremendous pressure. By utilising and preserving the material strength of properly-arranged wood fibres a material is obtained which is claimed to be not only stronger and lighter than pure plastics, but one whicn comoares favourably with the riveted aluminium alloys used in aircraft construction.