GIANT PLANES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 270, 13 November 1943, Page 4

GIANT PLANES

FOR OCEAN FLYING

POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

(0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 8. Engines, rather than politics, are the key to America's transoceanic flying future, was the opinion of William B. Stout, noted aeroplane designer and head of the Stout Research Division of ConsolidatedVultee Aircraft. "Our air-cooled radial engines are tops," he stated at a national aircraft and engineering production meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers held in Los Angeles. "They are virtually the only types flying the oceans to-day because of their dependability and their performance up to 600 hours without overhaul." Mr. Stout believes that ocean transports of the future will carry loads the equivalent of "maybe a dozen freight cars." ' "Luxuries will be in demand, too, he added. "People like to move about—and planes of the post-war era will have to accommodate them with recreational facilities such as cardrooms, etc." Transport planes now in service, he said, would be too costly to operate on a peacetime basis, and it was likely that mechanical parts would be salvaged for use on less costly types. The meeting also heard North American Aviation's training plane described as "one of the engineering miracles of World War II." Pilots of 24 United Nations are i receiving their advanced flying in late models■ of• this ship, originally designed and built in 60 days to win a United States Armv competition 10 years ago. To-day the 10,000 th of these trainers is in service, according to Ralph Rudd, assistant factory manager of the company's California division. The ship, he added, is now being built by several nations and is fitted with guns, bombs, cameras and virtually every other piece of equipment a combat pilot must learn to operate. H. S. Martin, of ConsolidatedVultee, San Diego, Southern California, told the engineers that safety and military necessity are the only two reasons considered sufficiently important to interrupt production of warplanes. '