AT FULL CAPACITY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 127, 25 November 1935, Page 15

AT FULL CAPACITY

BRITISH AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

The British aircraft 'industry.- is I working at full capacity to supply the \ requirements of the R.A.F/ expansion | scheme, writes Major C. C. Turner in; the "Daily Telegraph." ■ .' .: Owing to the need for .h'astej Air. Force orders have had to be given in; some cases for designs already exist-! ent. Tlie Air Ministry, however, hasi' to a great, extent offset this- d'isadvan-',"' tage by ordering new types in quan-' tity on drawing .office plans alone, thus ■ avoiding two or three years' delay, i In spite of the need to provide equip-; ment at a production speed unprecedented except in war-time,-designs for \ fighter aeroplanes of a new class and: of speeds up to 300 miles per hour are; well advanced. • ; The Air Ministry's' long-range re-j search and record-making aeroplane has been shelved. Work, however,' is in hand on the stratosphere explora-i tion aeroplane. Attempts to regain j the world air speed record and to set up a land aeroplane speed record are, unfortunately, not contemplated. The Air Ministry has not attempted to put an embargo on orders for military aircraft for foreign countries, and a few foreign orders are actually being executed, but it is inevitable that the inducement to seek such orders has at the present to a large extent disappeared. This may prove an oppor-| tunity for the United States. i The four British builders of flying-1 boats are fully occupied with the Im-i perial Airways order for fifteen such craft and with Air Ministry work. Big flying-boat developments on the civil side are inevitable in the next few years, and it will be a national misfortunate if this country neglects them. U.S.A. FLYING-BOATS. | A danger signal may be seen in the project to build American flying-boats in England, to be used on services to Northern Europe and to the Cape via the West Coast of Africa, with Southampton as an airport. The flyingboats are to be made in this country ■at works yet to be established, but that will be small compensation for the failure to design and build high-per-formance British craft. It is undeniable that the American type has, in certain respects, superior performance to the British type, chosen to suit the special requirements of Imperial Airways. That there is not a British machine of even greater range is due to the failure to offer inducement and opportunity to British designers. ■ The Mayo composite experimental aircraft, designed to combine maximum range and great speed with com- | mercial load, by its system of launchI ing from the air, has, fortunately, not ! been sacrificed. Work on it is proj ceeding according to schedule. '