EXPERIMENTS MADE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 250, 4 August 1941, Page 5

EXPERIMENTS MADE.

BOMBING FROM STRATOSPHERE. LONDON, August 2. Doctors, aircraft designers and some of the fittest men in the world are combining at a secret air station in an effort to solve the problems of stratosphere bombing, says the aero* nautical correspondent of the “Sunday Express.” The airmen flying experimental stratosphere aeroplanes spend a large part of their lives in a weird, fantastic world, 10 miles above the earth, where the sun looks like the moon, and has no radiant heat, and where the sky deepens from purple to black. If an airman tried to “bale out” in stratosphere he would explode. Thq aircraft would disintegrate if the dooi opened because the atmospheric pressure within .would suddenly change. Thus the three main problems are: first, to evolve a pressure cabin which will not explode if hit by a bullet; second to arm stratosphere aeroplanes with guns which must penetrate the pressure cabin or be fired by remote control; third, to make it possible for the crew to “bale out.” It is known that the enemy is making similar tests but it is confidently believed that the British experiments are ahead. /