Large Order for Planes

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 47, 25 February 1939, Page 5

Large Order for Planes

New Zealand is expanding its Air Force quite considerably, says the English journal Aeroplane. The Defence Department expects to receive this year about 125 used military aeroplanes from Great Britain. Hon. F. Jones, Minister of Defence, states that the Government is negotiating to buy 250 and has been promised half that number. The machines can still do much useful work for most of them are Hawker Harts and their derivatives. Probably, though we cannot get confirmation of the idea, many of them are machines which have been in store as reserves and have never been flown in the ordinary squadron service and are quite as good as new. The Hawker Hart trainer Is a service trainer seating two and having open cockpits. It has a fixed undercarriage and no wing flaps and a fixed pitch wooden airscrew. The machine is equipped with dual control in tandem. Powered with a Rolls-Royce Kestrel IB motor developing 500 horsepower at the take off, it has a speed or IGS miles an hour at 3000 feet and a stalling speed of 58 miles an hour. The service ceiling is 22,800 feet and its range in still air is 430 miles. Tho

Modern Training Machines

Hart trainer has a wing span of 37ft. 3in., a length of 29ft. 4in. and a height of 10ft. sin. The payload is 2401 b., and when fully loaded the machine weighs 41001 b. These planes will form a useful addition to these already in the Dominion. Recently the Government has imported a number of Airspeed Oxford bombers for training purposes on dual-engined planes, a considerable number of Baffins for the use of the territorial squadrons in the four centres as well as other machines which will be of use in the expansion of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The comparative strengths of the Air Forces of various Dominions and Great Britain as supplied in the latest ccdition of Whitaker’s Almanac are of interest in view of the b!g increase in the number of machines in the Dominion which may be expected this year. Details arc:— First-line Total New Zealand 28 100 Union of S. Africa .. 38 66 Australia ........ 40 60 Canada 200 400 India 200 Great Britain .. .. 28G0 4150