'FLYING PALACES.'

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 11

'FLYING PALACES.'

GIGANTIC . CLIPPERS. FIRST NEARS. COMPLETION. BIGGEST EVER CONSTRUCTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAX FRANCISCO, March 1. Some highly interesting details have been released by the San Francisco headquarters of Pan-American Airways | System, concerning the six "Atlantic I type" Clippers that are now under construction 011 tlie Pacific Coast at the Boeing Aircraft Factory in Seattle. Because the largest hangar structures were 110 longer large enough to contain it, the first of these giant Clippers has l>een moved one step nearer the Duwamish, sluggish brown waterway adjacent to the Boeing Seattle factory, in which she and her five sister ships, greatest flying boats ever constructed, are to be launched. Temporarily designated as "Clipper 17" (it is expected that this machine will be the "South Seas Clipper"), the hull of the huge 72-passenger flying boat has. been moved to an outdoor dock, where crews subsequently worked day and night concluding interior installation. In the outside dock the outer wing panels have been fastened in place and its four mighty engines installed. Only a step behind in construction stage, "Clipper 18," second ol the series, stands in a network of scaffolding on the assembly hangar floor, and the hull of the third Clipper in the series of six will soon take form in the space vacated by the first. Major Engineering Operation. Moving of the first of these Atlantic type of Clippers outdoors was a niajoi engineering operation. This all-import ant step toward the Duwamish \va? accomplished primarily by means of a mobile "dry dock." first of its kind and size ever constructed. It is a fifteen jton. eight-wheeled cradle of structural {steeL- A. complicated system of winch ej

ind cables was erected to transport the massive hull upon a ramp in the dock mt side the assembly hangar, from which position the Clipper later will be launched iti the Duwamish waterway. The structure as it was moved outloors, with only the inner stubs of its 152-foot wings in place, is so "large that t appeared more like a surface vessel than an aeroplane, the highly streamined hull of glistening aluminium alloy measuring 103 feet long from bow to tail. It has an outside surface area of lf>oo square feet, or one-tenth of an icre, and an inside volume equal to that if an average five-roomed house, includng the basement. The hull itself has t height of 19 feet, while the overall leight of the 'plane is 284 feet, ncluding the vertical fin of the tail that had to be removed to clear the doorway. The horizontal tail surfaces, which lave an area greater than the total wing ifea. of many twin-engined transport planes now' in operation, measure 4f feet from tip to tip. and barely cleared the width of the doorway. The gianl wings, with a span that would covei nearly half a city block, are to b< uttached l>efore the launching. Mean while Boeing workmen will completi many details of interior installation: while the 'plane stands at the water': ?dge. The big two-decked ocean air liner is expected to be ready for flight tests by May. Some Details. Here are some astonishing facts abouthis fifteen-room "flying palace." It: iross weight of 82.5CH) pounds is nearly three and a half times the gross weigh r>f the largest overland airliners now ii regular service in America. Its fou ?ngines alone weigh considerably mor< than the total loaded weight of tin Boeing transports that flew the airline; of America ten years ago. These engines of 1500 horse-power two-row Wright Cyclones, largest o their type ever built, together develo] twice as much power as an America i railway loeomotive, yet each one i? confined to a diameter less th.in fivi feet. The 'plane will fly on any two <• its four engines. All the engines anthe complete power plant iustallat ioi may he reached by mechanics durin; flight by way of passages through th< wings. Each of the threc-bladed Hainil ton Standard constant speed automatii adjusting propellers has a diameter oi 14 feet.