FIFTY BOMBERS

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 265, 29 November 1939, Page 1

FIFTY BOMBERS

AUSTRALIAN ORDER T\YJ N-FING IN Ml) HU J ISONS The rejjealof the embargo upon the export of amis from America has freed the Australian Air Force of a threatened difficulty, for ot) Lockheed Hudson bombers, ordered a year ago and later seemingly placed) outside possibility of delivery, are now available. Those Hudson bombers are .similar in all particulars of 'construction, oqnipment, and armament to the 2do Loekheeds ordered by the British Ail Ministry and the larger Heat ordered by France except that the Austiaiian machines are to be fitted with Piatt and Whitney twin-row AY asp engines, whereas the Hudsons for the ltoyal Air Force are powered pvith Wright Cyclones, The" performance of both types is similar, but the I’l.i- t and Whitney engine way specified for the Australian Heel, as siugle-banl: Wasp motors are to he manufactured under license at the great Australian aircraft and aircraft engine factory ,at Fishermen’s Bend, Victoria. Later, it is probable, twin-row AVasp? also will he- made at Fishermen’s ILmkl. 'jHudson long-range bombers are being produced from the Lo-’kin.od factory in Cali fora in, where 8000 men are employed, at. 'the rate of two a day., Tli&yi o're the military version of the Lhcklio’hlli 14, which is the bigger civil brother yjlf the FJlectrus Hying between Wellington and Auckland and Wellington and Dunedin. Tnoogu they carry fairly heavy defensive armament and equipment for long range observation, they are primarily “bombardment airplanes,” as the Americans have it. Normally a crew of live is carried —a bomber-navigator in the 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 lighter attack. Four fixed guns can ho carried in the wings for direct offensive lighting. The bomb capacity is about a ton, in bombs from oOOlb. downwards. Altogether the Hudson bomber is a formidable machine, with a range of over 2000 miles, a top speed of over 2&0 m.p.h., and a “ceiling” with full military load!, of nearly live miles.