AIR RESEARCH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 278, 20 August 1938, Page 10

AIR RESEARCH

Work In Royal Aircraft

Establishment

EMPLOYEES NUMBER 3000 After three years of aeronautical research at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, England, Mr.. E. R. Cooper, M.Sc., arrived at Wellington by the Ruahine yesterday. Dlr. Cooper may continue his research work in New Zealand or may go to the aeronautical laboratory, which has just been established at Melbourne by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Royal Aircraft Establishment is a purely research organisation, working in co-operation with the Royal Air Force. It employs 3000 persons, including 300 to 400 technicians. The New Zealander, Flying Officer A. E. Clouston, is one of the test pilots, and with him Dlr. Cooper has done a good deal of flying. _ The fastest plane in the air force to-day is the Vickers Supermarine monoplane, a single-seater fighter, Dlr. Cooper says. Figures for the new type are not yet out, but it is expected to do 350 miles an hour. At the establishment there are seaplane tanks and air tunnels, in which models of new aircraft are tested. 1 Dlost of the research into .means of increasing safety in the air is at present concentrated on devices designed to prevent the formation of ice on planes. The most satisfactory method, only in ‘the research stage, is the use of a rubber sleeve on the leading edge of the wings; the sleeve is blown up periodically to distort and crack off the ice.