TIME-LAG IN AEROPLANES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 56, 3 September 1938, Page 9

TIME-LAG IN AEROPLANES

A pithy remark was made in jesting tones 1& Mr. F. Handley Page at the ceremony of christening the first of the production bf Hampden bombers at Radlett Aerodrome, says the "Manchester duardian." He alluded to a charge sometimes brought against the, British aircraft industry to the effect that the time-lag between the appearance of a prototype of a new design hnd the issue of that type to the R.A.F. squadrons was so long that the type was obsolete before it reached the squadrons. He 'also mentioned the charge that a new British type was never so up to date as some corre-; sponding foreign one. "These charges," said Mr. Handley Page, "are true—only they are true of the aircraft industry of.every country in ' the world." Almost invariably a prototype needs numerous modifications before it is fit for use by the R.A.F. Moreover, to organise works for the mass production bf a new type after the modifications have been embodied in the design cannot be done in the twinkling of an eye. It seems to be a credit, and not the reverse, that a new and improved design is. always ready before the older one reaches the production stage.