GIANT ROCKETS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 308, 29 December 1944, Page 4

GIANT ROCKETS

DEVELOPED BY WAR

GERMANY'S V 2 IN ACTION

LONDON, Dec. 25. Apar, from ethical or military considerations, the German V 2 rocket must be acknowledged as an outstanding technical development, says tie journal, Flight. "No new physical, chemical or mechanical principles have been disclosed, but, as the Germans have been investigating the possibilities of giant rockets for more than 20 years, v 2 is doubtless the product of painstaking calculations. "Designs for even more ambitious rockets were made long before the war when there was virtually no encouragement or finances available to the German Rocket Society. Even now, there is reason to think that V 2 has been used operationally before developmental work on it has been completed. "The 12-ton projectile is 40ft long and is propelled by ethyl alcohol, which produces the highest practical exhaust velocity when burned. "In relatively small rockets, it is possible to bring the propellent fuel to the necessary pressures by :_-.erely storing, in robust tanks under high pressure, but this adds greatly to the weight of the projectile and the Germans overcome this in V 2 by usin? a rotary pump system to extract fuel from light tanks and 'blov' it at great pressure into the combustion chamber. "This pumping unit is one of the mos: interesting features of the design and its components have been mos. carefully designed and produced. "Ihe rocket climbs for about a mirute and then the rear control fins are changed, causing the rocket to alter its angle of flight from the vertical to rottghly 45 degrees to the target. a selected point, the 'power fliglt' is cut ofT by radio and V 2 coninues in free flight under its own momentum at roughly 3000 miles an hour. Air resistance slows it t> roughly 2500 miles an hour when it hits the target. "At such high speeds, air resistance becomes a big factor, and this lenck emphasis to reports that V 2 launching sites are being built on Norwegian mountains. This would lesstn the amount of fuel required to ake V 2's to the stratosphere, where still greater speeds, and consequently greater ranges, are feasbie." '