TESTED TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 206, 1 September 1938, Page 13

TESTED TO-DAY.

BOMBING 'PLANES.

WORK AT HOBSONVILLE. TRAINING MACHINES FOR N.Z. Tests were carried out tins afternoon at Hobsonville on the new Oxford bombers which arrived earlier in the week, and which were assembled at th-i Royal New Zealand Air Force base. Wing-Commander G. S. Hodson, A.F.C., R.A.F., officer commanding the Flying Training School of the Royal New Zealand Air Force at Wigram, arrived from the South this morning to carry out the tests. Wing-Commander Hodson, wlio is on loan to the Dominion Air Force, arrived recently from England. He had experience of this particular type of machine when attached to the R.A.F. in Kngland.

The machines will be flown to Wigram within the next few days. There they will be used for advanced training for officers in the New Zealand force. The two machines are the first of a consignment of five of the same type ordered under the new air expansion scheme. They are a highly efficient type of aircraft and will be*\ised to give" initial bombing training, which will be useful to the officers when the Wellington bombers, 30 of which have been ordered by the New Zealand Government, arrive.

The Oxfords are used extensively by the v R.A.F., and are distinctive in appearance, being a training type entirely new to New Zealand. They are fitted with bomb racks and a gun turret on the top of the fuselage, while another feature is a window in the nose of the nacelle which gives excellent observation for the pilots. There is side-by-side seating in the cockpit, which is fitted with all the most modern aircraft instruments.

A wireless operator is also provided for, and he lias his equipment and seat just inside the , door of the machine. The aircraft are fully equipped for night flying, landing lights being let into the leading edge of the wings. They can be altered for near or distant visibility. The machines also have a retractable undercarriage.