OCEAN AEROPLANES
AMBITIOUS AMERICANS American aircraft firms, in response to the invitation from Pan-American Airways to submit designs for an advanced ocean transport aeroplane, have sent in drawings and typed data which together weigh more than a ton, writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post."
Four leading firms, the Boeing Aircraft Co., the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, the Douglas Aircraft Co., and Sikorsky Aircraft, submitted proposals to the technical committee, of which Colonel Lindbergh is chairman.
The Seversky Aircraft Corporation, on its own initiative, submitted a design which goes beyond the specifications. It is for a machine to carry 43,0001b payload for 5000 miles at a cruising speed of 250 m.p.h. It would have eight 2500 h.p. engines and carry 120 passengers. Many engineers think such a machine would involve too great an advance, and that there ought to be intermediate classes. They point out that engines of 2500 h.p. are scarcely out of the experimental stage, and their full development will take two or three years. HEAVY EXPENSE. The class of machine suggested would, It is believed, cost about £300,000, and it is doubted whether the expenditure of such sums on planes would at present be economical. British flying-boats of the "Empire" class cost;about £54,000. The bigger boats now being built, such as the Boeings, are about twice the tonnage of the "Empire" class. The "Empire" flying-boats and the American machines used in last year's Atlantic experiments could not safely, on the westward flight, sacrifice fuel tankage for any appreciable pay-load. Designers are now required to provide for 100 passengers, a speed of 200 m.p.h., and a range of 5000 miles. In other words, from the negligible payload and the range of some 4000 miles of the "Empire" class a jump to a pay-load of some 25,0001b is proposed, and, in the opinion of many experts, present considerations of design prevent its realisation.
The possibility of converting the planes for military purposes is referred to in some of the projects
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 149, 27 June 1938, Page 7
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335OCEAN AEROPLANES Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 149, 27 June 1938, Page 7
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