300 MILES AN HOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1919, Page 9

300 MILES AN HOUR.

Paris, Feb. 24. The Matin publishes a description of a remarkable invention which, it is said, will enable aeroplanes to fly at enormous, heights and at a great, speed. s When a plane reaches : the height of; 15,000 feet above the earth the, air begins: to get markedly rarefied, and the further] it ascends the more rapidly does this! thinness of the air increase. Consequent-:' ly an insufficient amount of oxygen is supplied to the engine to insure the ef-> fcctive combustion of. the mixture of air and petrol vapor, and the machine loses power. M. Rateau, the inventor of the device, who lias just been elected a member of the French Academy of Science, has overcome this difficulty in a most ingenious manner. The exhaust from the engine is utilised to drive a turbine at some 30.000 revolutions per minute. This turbine drives a centrifugal air pump, which keeps up to normal pressure the air supplied to the carburettor. It is asserted that aeroplane engines fitted with this invention will maintain their full power at greatest heights at which it is pracV* \ie to fly. And owing to the reduced aik resistance to the forward motion of th( ftachine at these altitudes enonnou* are forecast; M. Louis Breguet OTV*s that within five years aeroplanes Sill be doing 3QO miles an hour.