THE FUTURE OF AVIATION

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3936, 30 April 1929, Page 2

THE FUTURE OF AVIATION

Discussing the possible developments in aviation in a recentlypublished hook Mr. Harry Harper says:—By perfecting .very large aircraft, with special engines and propellers, capable of rising ten miles or more high, and in thin, lowresistance air-attaining speeds which will be augmented until these huge (machines are rushing like projectiles through higher zones, we shall span the Atlantic in an almost unbelievably short time. Instead of lasting five or more days, as it does by steamship, the passage between London and New York .may, high flying advocates believe, shrink until ultimately great winged passenger craft, reaching colossal upper-air speeds, will reduce those five days to not more than about five hours! Assume that in a liner of the upper air one starts from London at noon: at that moment the clocks in New Yoilk would he pointing to 7 a.im. This -would mean that if we cleaved our way above the ocean at .the enormous speeds envisaged and actually glided doWn over New York within five hours of leaving London we should see the hands of the New York clocks pointing to 12 o'clock —just the same time as the London clocks had indicated when we ascended at the beginning of our rocket-like rush. Thus we achieve the apparently impossible and be in two places, more than 300(1 miles apart, at the same time!