A GIANT SEAPLANE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3352, 20 December 1926, Page 3

A GIANT SEAPLANE.

The j-inie when great air liners with heavy loads of passengers and goods will cross the Atlantic, just as regular services now cross the Channel, would appear to have been brought appreciably nearer by the launching at Et. Nazaire of tho largest seaplane in the world (states the Baris .correspondent of the. “Daily Telegraph”). The machine, which weighs twenty tons, and has a wing spun of 120 ft, is driven by five engines, developing 2100 horsepower Diluted hy Andre Dnhnmel, one of the most experienced of French airmen, i( has just passed through very satisfactory tests off the month of the River Boire, and was found to behave splendidly, both in high winds and on rough seas. Secrecy had hitherto been maintained concerning the design of this giant seaplane, on which engineers have been at work for seven years, hut a number of interesting details are mow revealed. Of the five engines, only one is fixed in the nose of file machine, file other four being mounted in its thick, hollow wings, in such a way as to lie easily accessible to the melia n it-s. All five are electrically controlled from the pilot's seat, which is situated on tho upper deck of the cabin section, which, divided into three stories, is 2.">f( high. Fuel and oil are carried in the wings as far away as possible from the cabins, the tanks being lilted with fire extinguishers, which act automatically in case of overheating. The machine, which is fitted to carry twenty passengers and their luggage, is believed to he capable of flying the Atlantic at a speed of eighty or ninety miles an hour, even if only thr«e of its five engines are Working.