BENEATH THE WINDSOCK

Evening Star, Issue 22031, 17 May 1935, Page 4

BENEATH THE WINDSOCK

[By Gypsy Moth.]

MAILS OR PASSENGERS? The ‘Aeroplane ’ states that the idea of using small, fast, twin-motor monoplanes for mails alone on some of the longer routes is taking shape in the French Air Ministry, since the de Havilland Comets put up their performance in the Macßobertson race last October. According to a French report, the authorities will probably buy four Caudrons with two motors of 9i litres capacity, an estimated top speed of about 228 in.p.li,, and a very long range. Three of these have been earmarked for mail-carrying, experiments, and the fourth will probably have a try at a long-distance flight. Colonel Davet, of the French Air Ministry, and M. Jean Mermoz, the South Atlantic mail pilot, have been in England looking at the do Havilland Comet at Hatfield. .On January. 12 each of them flew in turn with Mr Buckingham, the de Havilland pilot, in the Comet G-ACSR, which Mr Bernard Rubin kindly lent for the job. Not every country agrees with the British policy of carrying mails and passengers together, and if our loads get much bigger we will soon have to consider separating them. ANOTHER LONG RACE. A proposal has been made by Mr William Templeton, manager of the Vancouver City Airport, that an international air race of 3,000 miles shall he flown next summer across Canada from Halifax (Nova Scotia) to Vancouver, B.C. He suggests that a pot of pure Canadian gold shall be the prize for the winner and a pot of silver for the second man home. The object is to focus attention on the future of aviation in the dominion, and to stimulate interest in the forthcoming transCanada air mail service. The project is good, and no doubt there will be plenty of American by firms and individuals who are anxious to retrieve their abject failure in MacRobertson race—with the exception of the Douglas and Boeing. A STRANGE FREIGHT. The New f England Airways aeroplane City of Brisbane was to leave Mascot aerodrome, Sydney, the other morning with unusual freight—a Jersey bull calf, enclosed in a specially made crate, in the luggage compartment in the rear of the aeroplane. The animal was consigned to Brisbane (states an exchange). The calf, whicli is of outstanding quality and good pedigree, was purchased at the Royal Show by Mr H. M. Collins, of Maryborough, Queensland. from Navua Limited, of Richmond, New (South Wales, Mr Collins was anxious to return to his station as quickly as possible, so he decided to travel by aeroplane to Brisbane and to take the calf with him, so that he could keep an eye on it. The animal weighs 1241 b, and, with the crate, the strange freight equalled in weight a passenger and his luggage. The charge for ordinary by air is Is 6d per lb, but as this consignment was a large one, New England Airways reduced the rate to Is per lb.' Mr Collins intended to carry a largo bottle of milk with him in case the animal needed a drink on the journey. VERTICAL ASCENT CLAIMED. A helicopter, which promises to ally a forward speed of at least 100 miles an hour with the power to hover and to make a slow vertical descent in the event of engine failure, will probably be flying in this country by the end of the summer (states a London writer). It will also have a rate of climb, achieved by vertical ascent, in excess of that of any commercial aeroplane. It will be built to take a pilot and passenger and about 1001 b of baggage. _ In this form it will use a 300 h.p. engine, and will have a duration of about t)yo hours. The work of construction will be undertaken by the Blackburn Aeroplane Company, at Brough, near Hull. This type of helicopter, invented and developed by Herr Oskar Asboth, owes its special characteristics to the type of airscrew used to obtain lift. In most other helicopter models a limit on height of operation appears to have been determined by the diameter of the airscrew employed. The Ascanio type, which holds the world’s records for helicopters, reached a height of 18 metres when using airscrews of 12 metres diameter, and it has been held that lift rapidly decreases when the helicopter moves above the area of cushioned air created where the downwash from the screws strikes the earth. One of the earlier Asboth helicopters, using screws of less than five metres diameter and an engine of 85 h.p., reached a height of 15 metres and made over 90 flights to prove its automatic stability.