GIANTS OF AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 308, 28 December 1940, Page 5

GIANTS OF AIR.

AMERICAN PLANES. HIGH PERFORMANCE TESTS. (0.C.) SAX FRANCISCO, Nov. 25. Delivery of a 400-mile-per-hoar fighter plane to tie United State* Navy, and performance tests of a new medium bomber and a primary training plane for the U.S. Army marked fresh progres# in the aerial phase of Uncle Sam'* ; national defence programme. Secretary Knox disclosed in Washing. ton that the navy bad jast received it* '. first delivery of a new single-seater • fighter plane capable of travelling in ; excess of 400 miles per hour. This ship • was delivered by the Vouglit-Sikorsky ; Company, he said, and several additional • ones like it were at the company's plant , ready for delivery. The War Department disclosed that a new medium bombardment plane, the : B-25, was being tested and inspected by Air Corps officers and engineers at the plant of the North American Aviation Company at Ingle wood, California. Details of the plane's performance thus far were not revealed. The department said merely that the new bomber was an all-metal monoplane of conventional design with an internally braced midwing. It is powered with two 14cylinder two-row radial air-cooled engines. Propellers are of the controUablepitch constant-speed full-feathering type. The plane carries a crew of five and full navigation and radio equipment. * r Official* said that the PT-20A, a new primary training plane manufactured by the Ryan Aeronautical Company at San ! Diego, California, was undergoing te<-l* . at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio.