FIFTY BOMBERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20102, 23 November 1939, Page 13

FIFTY BOMBERS

AUSTRALIAN ORDER TWIN-ENGINED HUDSONS The repeal of the embargo upon the export of arms from America has freed the Australian Air Force of a threatened difficulty, for 50 Lockheed Hudson bombers, ordered a year ago and later seemingly placed outside possibility of delivery, are able.

These Hudson bombers are similar in all particulars of construction, equipment, and armament to the 250 Lockheeds ordered by the British Air Ministry and the larger fleet ordered by France, except that the Australian machines are to be fitted with Pratt and Whitney twin-row Wasp engines, whereas the Hudsons for the Royal Air Force are powered with Wright Cyclones. The performance of both types is similar, but the Pratt and Whitney engine was specified for the Australian fleet, as single-bank Wasp motors are to be manufactured under license at the great Australian aircraft and aircraft engine factory at Fishermen’s Bend, Victoria. Later, it is probable, twin-row Wasps also will be made at Fishermen’s Bend.

Hudson long-range bombers are being produced from the Lockheed factory in California, where 8000 men arc employed, at the rate of two a day. They arc the military version of tnc Lockheed 14, which is the bigger civil brother of the Electras flying between Wellington and Auckland and Wellington and Dunedin. Though they carry fairly heavy defensive armament and equipment for long-range reconnaissance .and photographic observation, they are primarily “bombardment airplanes," as the Americans have it.

Normally a crew of five is carried —a bomber-navigator in t.he extreme nose, the pilot, the radio operator, relief pilot, and two gunners in stations at the roar of the pilot to defend the machine against fighter attack. Four fixed guns can be carried in the wings for direct offensive fighting. The bomb capacity is about a ton, in bombs from 5001 b. downwards. Altogether the Hudson bomber is a formidable machine, with a range of over 2000 miles, a top speed of over 250 m.p.h., and a “ceiling” with full military load, of nearly five miles.