GIANT AEROPLANE

Hokitika Guardian, 6 January 1931, Page 7

GIANT AEROPLANE

SUCCESSFUL TRIAL. AIRCRAFT WITH ENGINE ROOMS. LONDON, November 21. First flights of the largest passengercarrying land aeroplane yet built, the Handley Page Type 42, indicate that the new giant of the air is docile and easily controlled. Four engines, each developing up to a maximum of some 600 horse-power, drive it within a few seconds to a speed at which the immense biplane’s wings, the upper pair measuring nearly 140 feet from tip to tip, lilt it from the ground. 'Laden in the fuselage with the comparatively light burden of three tons of scrapiron the craft rose in the space of seven seconds and, with the engines running at cruising speed, moved j through the air at a velocity of 117 miles an hour. It was flown on various combinations of engines, the pilot throttling down to idling point first one and then another. On the ground skilful control of the engines and the use of wheel brakes enables the pilot to handle the machine as easily as a small light aeroplane. In the air, safety “auto-slot” wings ensure a full range of control and assist in making landings in a restricted area. The estimated weight of the aircraft, fully loaded, is nearly thirteen tons. The maximum speed is expected to be 129.5 m.p.h. ; easy cruising speed approximately 105 m.p.h. The paying loud—passengers, mail, and urgent freight—wall total in weight 8160 pounds, an amount far greater than that air-borne by any other air-liner yet bnlit, Comfort is n predominating note in the design, The passenger saloons attain in furnishings a standard of luxury equal to that of a Pullman railway car. In flight the wants of the passengers will be served by a steward and a stewardess. The crew handling the ship on commercial flights will consist of two pilots.

Noise Reduction

Noise reduction, previously thought impossible, is gained in this new craft. 'l’lio saloons are outside the vertical plane of the airscrews and engines, which is the region where the greatest noise is heard. Further, there is no engine in the nose of the fuselage to transmit possible vibration and “drumming” through the cabin structure; the motors are mounted in the front (or leading) edges of the wings well away from the hull. The main portion of the fuselage is constructed of metal eliminating noise caused by the flapping of the usual fabric cover, with an inner skin of wood. Between the metal and wood skins is a padding of sound-insulating material. The floor is thickly carpeted. At full speed the passemgers should experience no more noise than the first-class compartments of an express train. In spite of its great size and power the machine is exceptionally quiet in flight. When over Itadlett Aerodrome, where Handley Page aircraft are assembled and flown the Type 42, with its four wonderful “Jupiter” air-cooled motors, seemed to spectators on the ground quieter than a small single-seater training aircraft, which was aloft at tho same time.

A Viking “Fury”,

Norn is the name chosen for the latest single-seater fighter adopted for use in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force. This aircraft, the fastest of its kind in the world, was originally known as the Sea Hornet, being a slightly modified form of the Hornet fighter produced by the H. G. Hawker Engineering Company, and chosen to re-equip certain It.A.F. home defence squadrons., UnderN the new system oi nomenclature for aircraft passing into the service the Hornet was renamed Fury, thus fulfilling the requirement that all land fighters should have a type name beginning with F. Now the fleet fighter obliged to possess a name beginning with N has been called Norn, a Scandinavian word dating from Viking days meaning Fury, and thus preserves the close relationship between the two aircraft. Aircraft with Engine-rooms. Central control for aero engines has excited some discussion among British technical experts, following the visit to Calshot of the German flying-boat Do-X. From time to time British inventors have striven to devise satisfactory means to obtain, not merely central control of the various units of the power-plant, but a cen'trnlist'd engine-room. Forms of shaft or gearing provide connexion between engines and air screws. One of the best remembered aeroplanes built to realise these ideas was the British “Tramp”, a triplane produced seven or eight years ago. This craft bad four motors in a central engine-room in the fuselage. Two engines were located on each side of tile room with a central gangway so that any necessary engine adjustments could lie made during flight. Power was transmitted through gearing to two large airscrews, placed one on either side of the fuselage, and with the connecting gear bidden in the thickness of the middle plane. Advantages of such an arrangement of engines are obvious; the difficulty which, up to the present, has defeated inventors is that an extremely serious kind of vibration is set up in the shaft or gearing mechanism. Thus British design anticipated by several years the central control of the German flyingboat.