ERA OF STRATOSPHERE LINERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 17 December 1947, Page 3

ERA OF STRATOSPHERE LINERS

CROSSING ATLANTIC IN 250-TONNERS TEN THOUSAND PASSENGERS NIGHTLY Since I left Europe I have covered more than 45,000 miles by air. Like myself, there are twenty thousand others who each night sleep up in the clouds and during the day keep their business appointments down below, writes Andre Labarthe in an overseas publication. In this air age, just beginning, distances will be measured in hours, not in miles. Every village will have its airfield, its gateway to the sky.

Holidays will be spent in those regions of light which now can be seen only on the screen—in India among the contemplatives; in Egypt among the mummies: in South America among the exuberants; in China among the philosphers.

every 100 tons of the total weight of an aircraft carry 200 times more passengers than every 100 tons of the total tonnage of a liner within the same period. To every'2s tons of total weight the French liner Normandie carried one passenger at an average speed of 31 miles an hour. A transatlantic aircraft to every ton of total weight carries one passenger at a speed of 250 miles an hour. Even the most ‘timorous and the old-fashioned have had to adapt themselves; even geography is not exempt. In this air age Mercator's Projection is out of date.

It will cost less than to cross the Atlantic today. Super-Clipper will go off on a world stroll with 120 passengers in its cabins placed in the wings. Men will shave in the morning and will look out through the transparent leading edge of the plastic wing driven by a rocket engine, and watch the storms gathering on the horizon. Corridor will Connect Engines

The engines will be entirely placed in the wings and will be accessible throughout the flight by a connecting corridor. Such a machine in now under construction.

On the map the route from Washington to Tokyo appears to pass near San Francisco. But the great circle routes are the shortest, so that WashingtonTokyo passes through Canada and skirts Sibera.

The trip from London to New York will take eight hours and cost £25. In the near future the aeroplane will have all the comforts and luxuries of a liner —showers, bathrooms, and sunbathing rooms, games rooms, cinemas, and television. An idea of its size is given by the Mars a sea-bomber built lor the United States navy but now used for transport. It has a storage capacity of about 145 cubic yards. There are two rudders, 13ft high, and ailerons longer than the wings of a fighter. Flying liners will become bigger and bigger. There is no limit to the size of a plane, its only limit will be the cargo load which it will be able to carry. Stratospheric aircraft, flying at a height of about 40,000 feet far above the layers of storms and frosts, will accomplish long trans-oceanic flights equipped with engines fed by turbocompressors, automatic pitch propellors, pressure cabins, and jet engines or gas turbines. At present 12 to 15 crews cross the Atlantic every night piloting 40-ton aircraft. Navigators handle the compass, the protractor, and the charts. They converse through the fog with neighbouring radio stations. Then they tell the pilot: Course 210. A slight touch of the rudder bar, and the aircraft imperceptibly alters its course. Land and Sea Speed Near Limit Behind the crews about 40 passengers are sleeping. They carry in their dreams worries and cares from one continent to the other. Shortly, each night, 100 crews will pilot 250-ton airliners: 100 navigators will trace their course, and 10,000 passengers will cross in a single night from east to west. By land and sea, speed is rapidly reaching it limit. Only in the air can it be increased. A speed of 95 m.p.h. on the roads and 115m.p.h, on specially constructed rails would require a driving power which would prove uneconomical. In 1910 transatlantic steamers did 27 knots. Today an 80,000-ton ship of 150,000 h.p. does 32 knots. • It is impossible to attain a speed of 40 knots. Contrary to ships, the speed of aircraft will continue to increase, without increasing charges—and even sometimes /educing them. This is due to the flying height, to the carrying loads of 600 pounds to the square yard to the rates of speed, the precision of design, and to the aerodynamic resistance of the fuselage being only a negligible fraction of the resistance of the aircraft. In 1939 the transport aircraft went at 190 miles an hour. In 1946 it did 280 miles an hour. Today heavy machines are being constructed which will go at 400 m.p.h. for a distance of 3750 miles. •Plans are nearly completed for planes which will go 500 m.p.h. for 6250 miles. And, better than all, the mail-plane, with a speed of 1000 m.p.h., will be delivering mail from London to New York and from New York back to London in a single day. Mail Plane at 1000 Miles an Hour The plane is at present eight times faster than the luxury liner. And

The route from Washington to Moscow by the great circle passes close to Greenland.

Since the more important nations are all within the Northern Hemisphere, the great circle routes pass close to the Pole.

The Arctic regions are thus the crossroads of the air age- They form the hub of a wheel around which radiate all the great routes. We shall soon be crossing the Arctic Ocean, and not the Atlantic. The Arctic will become the Mediterranean of the North, and one day the main door to the U.S. will no longer be by New York.