HUGE AIRCRATF

Hokitika Guardian, 29 May 1933, Page 3

HUGE AIRCRATF

ORDERS PLACED IN AMERICA

.FAST OCEAN-GOING /PLANE'S.

NEW YORia, May 20. Construct (ion contracts’ amounting to JW3i,£u) were placed''yesterday for six huge dying boi'-ts, the largest aeroplanes ever to be built, in tne United States. The aircraft, the first cf which is expected to tty within a year, will -he tile super clipper . ships of the fleet of Pan American Airways, whose h.ms now ring the Caribbean and South America, and include the key .airways of Alaska and China in a networks which may ultimately connect the United States with the Far East. Three of the flying boats will be built by the Glenn L. Martin Company, of Baltimore, Maryland, and three by the Sikcrsk Aviation Company, of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Mr Jitau T. Trippe, preside At of the company, said that the directors had authorised the construction in the expectation that world trade conditions will have greatly improved as a.result of Mr Roosevelt’s aggressive efforts hy the time the full order can be li voted. Modern ocean-type aircraft would then be (required, lie said, if the United States -was to retain its proper share of traffic on the ocean trade routes.

The contracts, based upon specifications laid down by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, as head of the line’s technical committee, are. regarded in aeronautical circles as evidence of the aviation industry’s confidence in the rdh'a.bil.ittttion of American. 'foreign trade.

Contracts for . the six flying boats ar,& to be followed hy others which will probably be distributed among five plants, amounting to £250,000, for miscellaneous flying equipment for its 26,000 miles of airways. More th'iii 18 months have been ■devoted to detailed research and testing by the airline’s engineers on tlie flying boats. These all-metal craft will have a cruising speed well in excess of any other aircraft of the type. This cytiisS ing speed has not. been announced, but it is know r n that it will lie. more than 150 miles an hour. .The craft will have a. range, with pay load, .sufficient to sn:n either of the major oceans , by,, the island routes.