A "TWO-TAILED BOGY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 36, 10 February 1917, Page 13

A "TWO-TAILED BOGY."

A SKY DREADNOUGHT BROUGHT DOWN. We have been told a good deal about the new German battle-plane. "A Flying Patrol," who has been permitted by the Censor to relate his adventures in the " Cornhill Magazine," has had a fighfc with one, and the .result was quite sat idfactory from his point of view. "It goes by the name of the 'Twotailed Bogy,' owing too rts having two fuselages, or tails, instead oi one, wittt an engine of about 150 horse-power at the forward end of each. In between is a nacelle containing three persona, one of whom pilots and the other two work the machine-guns, which fire both fore and aft. " It ie a great, big, heavy biplane, with, enormous wings, much larger than anything •Wβ haye out here at the moment. Some people cay that, beside the two tractor propellers there ia a third pusher engine and propeller, mounted at the tail-end of the nacelle, but I do not credit this myself. Its speed is about 90 miles an hour, so it ie bigger, faster and more heavily armed than our own fighters of which we are so fond. "The crab of it, apparently, is that ib is clumsy and very difficult to manoeuvre, and so loses much of ite advantages. The Hune brag about it a good deal, yet none of have dared to come and fight us over our own lines, whichi ie, of course, a big handicap." STORY OF THE FIGHT. A flying patrol was in a 100-horse power "pusher" biplane, armed with ma-chine-gun, rifle and two pistols, when he met the " Two Tails," and. the fight lasted about a quarter of an hour. One of the Boche's guns was put out of action almost immediately., but our owa gun jammed. " For the next) five minutes or co we had an exciting chase, in which our manoeuvring power was backed against the German's extra speed. Occasionally we fired a few rounds of revolver ammunition at him when ■Wβ managed to get close enough, and he was firing at us with hie remaining machine gun whenever he could bring it to bear. AH this time Roger (the observer) was working away at our gun—he took it completely to pieces, and, having extracted the remains of a faulty cartridge from its interior, reassembled the mechanism— not a bad performance under fire in an aeroplane that was continuually climbing, diving, tivisting or turning." When the gun -was working they resumed the fight, knocked out one of the Hun engines, and the second gun, and finally the pilot. "We chased it down 4,000 ft., till it was falling earthwards out of control; and although we did not actually ccc it touch the ground, it must have emashed up completely when it did so." '