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NEW DEFENCE PLANES

Blackburn Baffin Given Test Flights TWELVE BEING ASSEMBLED One of the Blackburn Baffin aeroplanes for tho recently-formed Wellington Territorial Squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force has been as-" sembled and tested at the Hobsonville Air Base. The test flights were made by Flight Lieutenant A. G. Lester. Eleven others are being assembled and will be test flown in the next few weeks. A hangar to accommodate some of the machines is being built at Rongotai Aerodrome. Others will be housed at the new Ohakea Aerodrome, near Feilding. The Blackburn Baffins, imported to New Zealand., although second-hand, are reported to have been used only to a limited extent by the Royal Air Force. Machines of this type have been part 'of the equipment of the R.A.F. since 1934. The type is a single-engined torpedo-bomber, fleet spotter or reconnaissance machine. The pilot’s cockpit is below a cut-out portion of the top wing, and there is an observer’s cockpit directly behind. A varied military equipment may be fitted, depending on the purpose for which the machine is to be used. Two machine-guns can be carried, one fixed to fire forward between the blades of the propeller and one mounted on a ring over the rear cockpit. For naval co-operation work a torpedo can be carried centrally between the legs of the undercarriage. For bombing a load of over half a ton can be mounted, on bomb racks on the bottom wing. General service apparatus, such as wireless equipment can also be fitted. The maximum speed "is about 140 miles an hour and the landing speed about 60 miles an hour. The Baffin has a range of about 450 miles, and can' climb to 15,000 feet. The Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co., Ltd., specialises in the manufacture of torpedoplanes, having produced the single-seater Dart and the twoseater Baffin, Ripon and Shark. A Bristol Pegasus air-cooled engine, giving 565 h.p. at. 2000 r.p.m. -at 5000 ft., is a product of the famous Bristol Aeroplane Co., whose engines are in use throughout the British Empire as well as in France, Italy, G’ermany, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Japan and Russia, licences to manufacture in these countries having been ceded by the Bristol Aeroplane Co. Bristol Pegasus engines provided the power for the flying-boat Centaurus, which recently visited New Zealand. Seven Tiger Moth planes are also to be assembled and tested at Hobsonville. The Tiger Moth is a two-seater open cockpit training biplane, suitable for either general or service training. It has tandem cockpits with complete dual control fittings, and can be used for flying training, formation flying, reconnaissance duties, fighting and bombing, and wireless telegraphy and photography. The maximum speed is about 110 miles an hour, and the landing speed about 45 miles an hour. The machine can climb to J6,oooft. The engine is a four-cylinder in-line inverted air-cooled Gipsy Major.

The Tiger Moth is a development of the ordinary Moth, the machine responsible for the great growth of aero club flying all over the world from about 1928. It is another of the successful product's of the De Havilland Aircraft Co., Ltd., of Hatfield, Hertsfordshire.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19380203.2.63

Bibliographic details

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 110, 3 February 1938, Page 10

Word Count
527

NEW DEFENCE PLANES Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 110, 3 February 1938, Page 10

NEW DEFENCE PLANES Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 110, 3 February 1938, Page 10