PLANE TEST DELAYED
APPEAL BY CHURCHES “WOULD EMPTY PEWS" NEW YORK, Nov. 24. The first test flight of the world’s largest land-based plane was postponed until after church time in California yesterday, because local clergymen protested that the spectacle “would empty the pews ” A crowd of 100,000 saw the 132-ton aircraft take off gracefully from ban Diego airfield in the afternoon Built by the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, the plane has six pusher-type engines and is known as the XC99. It carries a crew of nine. The plane is 182 feet long and its tail towers 57 feet into the air about the same height as a five-storey building. It has a maximum range of 3000 miles, and a top speed of 300 miles an However, it is smaller than Howard Hughes’ giant flying-boat which nade a short flight recently. The flying-boat weighs 200 tons, carries 700 soldiers a*,d is 219 feet long.
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Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22511, 15 December 1947, Page 5
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153PLANE TEST DELAYED Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22511, 15 December 1947, Page 5
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