SILENT AEROPLANES

Evening Star, Issue 18668, 24 June 1924, Page 7

SILENT AEROPLANES

MUCH TO BE DESIRED. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. .LONDON, Juno 10. _ It, is understood that tho Air Ministry has successfully evolved a dead-silent aeroplane. While it is comparatively easy to silence tho engine by tho addition o fweight and tho sacrifice, of power, up to tho present it has been found impossible to effectively muffle tho tell-talo droning noise of the propeller and the high musical note emitted by tho lightlysi rung wires in the rush through the

The Air .Ministry, by introducing a silent machine, renders inoperative tho sensitive instrument nicknamed the

" bngphono.” or directional listener, the only known means, other than by searchlight, of tracing the course of night-l.lyi.ng aeroplanes, which enabled London's air defenders to aoonrately locato the attack of Gotha raiders in war-time. .Vn authority lias remarked that London would have been defenceless if the Gothas had boon noiseless.

The development of the silent aeroplane also marks the most important stop in commercial aviation. Passengers in the cross-Channel services at present find it necessary In stuff their ears with cotton wool in deaden the noise, and are of It'll deaf hours after alighting.