COMPO AEROPLANE

Grey River Argus, 14 August 1937, Page 9

COMPO AEROPLANE

FOR HEAVY LOADS . Mid-air Take-off [British Official Wireless]. RUGBY, August 12. Four more double North Atlantic journeys, to be flown by the Caledonia and Cambria, are scheduled before the winter ice at Newfoundland closes the route. Meanwhile. interest temporarily centres on the Shortmavo composite aircraft, which has been designed to overcome the difficulty of launching long range aircraft with a maximum load, and which is now ready for trials. The first experimental flights will be made with the lower component, a large four-engined flying-boat, similar to the standard Empire boat, except for the mechanism by which the upper component, a four-engined float aeroplane, will be attached. The lower component is powered by four Bristol Pegasus engines of 950 horsepower each.

Not until both components have satisfactorily passed the trials will the critical experiment of a joint flight with the launching of the upper component, at a height of about ten thousand feet, be carried out. The Shortmayo composite aircraft is one of three lines of attack on the problem of a commercial trans-At-lantic flight, the other two being Empire flying-boats, which have already been on trial, and the De Haviland Albatross monoplanes, experimental flights with which are not yet fixed. Imperial Airways is to have its own railway terminus in London. It will be alongside Victoria Station, and special trains will run from it direct to Croydon and Southampton for passengers on the Empire flying-boat services. Plans for linking other airports with the London railway terminal are being pushed forward. Heston Airport will be eighteen minutes by rail journey from Paddington, and a new aerodrome under construction for r City of London Corporation at Ilfor' will be within twenty-five minutes of the city by electric train. RUSSIAN POLAR FLIGHT. MOSCOW, August 12. Sigismund Levanevsky, the Soviet air ace, took off at 6.15 p.m. (local time) on a non-stop flight across the North Pole to Fairbanks, from where he is continuing to Edmonton, Chicago, and New York. The machine is four-engined, and has a total crew of seven. . GLIDER CRASHES. BUDAPEST, August 12. A glider, crashing into k a high tension cable, threw the whole of Budapest into darkness. All the capital’s electricity supply was disorganised.