A GREAT SEAPLANE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3692, 17 September 1927, Page 4

A GREAT SEAPLANE.

BRITAIN'S LATEST.

MOST POWERFUL IN WORLD.

The British Air Ministry has just recently taken delivery of what is probably the most powerful seaplane in the world, and it has now concluded exhaustive trials from the fleet air arm base at Calsliot, y on Southampton Winter, which is commanded by Wing Com'niander F. E. T. Hewlett, the son of the famous novelist. His mother was herself at one time an aeroplane, pilot, and used before the war to run a flying school at Brooklands.

The Valkyrie has been built by Messrs Saunders, of East Cowes, who have produced many recordbreaking motor-boats made of their patent plywood' in which layers of wood are sewn together with copper wire. ■lt is driven by three 670 horsepower Rolls-Royce engines situated in a row side by side between the planes above the hull. The front of the hull is shaped like a motor-boat with a sharp cut-water, and has a wide “strake” to prevent the spray being thrown up into the engines when she is running along; the water. CREW OF FIVE MEN.

The pilot and navigator sit one behind the other in front of the wings. Right in the hows is a cockpit for the forward machine-gun-ner, where he has an arc of fire over practically the whole horizon, forward, upward, and downward. Cockpits for two more machinegunners are provided in the after part of the hull behind the wings for defence against hostile aircraft attacking from the rear. Sleeping accommodation for the crew is provided in the hull, and every ' provision, (such as anchor and mooring attachments, is made

to enable the seaplane to live entirely in the water independent of a land base.

In order to relieve the pilot of some of the heavy work of operating the controls of so enormous a machine in “bumpy” weather the great rudder is litted with a small auxiliary rudder behind. All the pilot has to do is to operate this small rudder, which turns easily, and the wind pressure on it swings over the main rudder in the desired direction. This principle was invented by Herr Flettncr, the designer of the Flettner “motor” ship. The Valkyrie is destined for longdistance reconnaissance work with the 'British fleet.