ROCKET 'PLANE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 233, 2 October 1929, Page 7

ROCKET 'PLANE.

German Inventor Makes Trial Flight. PILOT DAZED BY TRIP. (Australian ana >".Z. Press Association.) LONDON, October 1. The German inventor,;Von Opel, piloting a rocket aeroplane of his own design, flew six miles at a height of 250 ft at Frankfort.

Undeterred by the failure of his first two attempts to rise, when the machine only bounced 50yds,. Opel persevered. Finally he took the air with a noise akin to heavy gunfire.

The machine spurted flames as it went into the air in a series of curves. It is totally unlike the usual aeroplane. It is a monoplane without a propeller. The fuselage is beneath the wings Behind the pilot's seat is what appears to be a shortened motor in which rockets are adjusted. The propulsive force is obtained by the rapid explosion of gases against "the air, which drives the machine forward.

When Opel landed-lie was sitting in front of the stub-nosed .fuselage, obviously in a dazed condition. He was clad in an asbestos suit—a necessary protection against the red-hot steel tubes in which the rockets exploded.

AIRMEN , SAFE.

FRENCHMEN SIGHTED.

(Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) MOSCOW, October 1. The two French airmen, Costes and Bellcneonte, for whom some anxiety was felt, were sighted yesterday flying over Novosibirsk in the direction of Irkutsk, East Siberia.

The livers set out from Le Bourget, Paris, in an endeavour to make a nonstop flight to Harbin, Manchuria.