EVERY TYPE OF PLANE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 December 1939, Page 7

EVERY TYPE OF PLANE

STOREHOUSE OPEN TO AT .LIES, A wide range of Uniled States fighting, bombing, and training aircraft is now available to the Allies, as a result of the lifting of the embargo on the export of arms to belligerent countries. British and French aircraft procluction is already probably 50 per cent greater than that of Germany, and the resources of the American aircraft industry will give the Allies an overwhelming superiority in numbers of aeroplanes. The American types of military aircraft available to the Allies include four-engined long-range landplanes and flying-boat bombers, capable of living from the east coast of Australia to New Zealand and back with a military load without refuelling, and fast fighters, more manoetivreable than the German Messerschmitts. In the long-range bombing class there is the Consolidated PBY livingboat type, known to Australians and New Zealanders through the visit of, the Guba. which could fly non-stop a distance of 4000 miles in still air. I The Lockheed Hudson, ordered in i large numbers by Great Britain and Australia, cruises at 220 miles an hour, and can be equipped for a range of 2000 miles, with a load of bombs and ammunition for machine-guns. The Curtiss-Wright fighters, which have been sold to France, are similar in type to those which have been ordered at a cost of £4.000,000 for the United States Army Air Corps. Their top speed is more than 330 miles an hour. Other twin-engined bombing types suitable for the Allies include the Douglas Attack Bomber and the Glenn Martin Bomber. The United States Army recently placed an order worth £4.000,000 for Douglas bombers, and 139 Glenn Martins have been acquired by Holland for the Netherlands Indies Air Force.

In the single-engined field. Ameri- j can aircraft factories can offer a num- I ber of long-range fighters suitable for escorting bombing squadrons on longrange missions. These include the Seversky Convoy Fighter, many of which were recently acquired for the Russian Air Force. Others in which the Allies are likely to be interested are the Vought and Vultee types, which are manufactured by the Northrop division of the Douglas factory. American training aircraft range from the standard metal and woodbiplanes to low-wing metal monoplanes of the Ryan type, already seen in Australia. Large numbers of Ryan trainers are being used by the United States Army An Corps,