HUGE BATTLEPLANE.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14108, 23 February 1916, Page 3

HUGE BATTLEPLANE.

TEN-TON BRITISH, MACHINE,

A super-battleplane^—-i.iie largest, in fact, yet designed—is tinder construction in America at tho Curtfes Aviation Work?, in Euffalo (says the "Daily Chronicle").

It will -be remembered that this famous lairnvtui built the aeroplane which was tc> fiy across tlie Atlantic, and that machine marked, in point of size, an era in. aviation. But big as it was, however, the new iaeroplane will be si? times larj/er. Many of its parts are already finished, and within a few months a flying monster will emerge from the Curfciss factories to astonish the world.

Including its crew of eighi men, this aicrial super-dreadnought will weigh altogether more than ten tons, and can cjirr/ over a inn of ammunition. Its cruising capacity is nearly 700 miles, and with this rtadras the machine, starting from the allied lines in France, for example, could raid that portion of the German. Empire west of an imaginary line drawn from Bremen in the north to the Bohemian frontier in the south. In comparison with tho Zeppelin it would have the advantage, of being ahle to land anywhere to obtain supplies of fuel, whereas the airship ivquires a special shed land a small I aritiv. of men to deal with it.

Three propellers will be driven by the motors. Two of these, it is estimated, will keep the machine sailing on an even keel once altitude is gained, and it is believed that even one of them would give quite & flat "gliding angle,"' as tho angle of a forced descent is called That is to say, if the machine were two miles in the air and two of the motors were stopped, th© craft, propelled by -tlie remaining motor, could traverse thirty miles -while descending. A separate; motor is installed for starting the machine. The boat hull will be of cedar, sheathed with copper on the under side, and will be provided with a dozen, watertight compartments. Th© cabin will have an area of probably 350 ft of floor space and a head room of about 10ft at the highest'pointy exclusive of the conning tower, in which will sit the navigator and his assistant. What the armament will be can only be surmised. A gun of quite heavy calibre, capable of a circular motion, at an elevation of a mile, would col/er everything below within a radius of threo miles. Such a gun could destroy a submarine at a considerable depth, and the American engineers seem to think that it will drive the submarine «P ■ from the seas.

With its superior speed and manoeuvring ability and its formidable armament, the craft would be practically invulnerable to attack from any form of dirigible balloon, or from smaller aeroplanes.