WORLD ITEMS

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 4

WORLD ITEMS

LONDON, Oct. 29. “Janes All the World’s Aircraft (1947) gives the following account ot the XS-1: “The XS-1 is the United States Army Air F'orce’s first rocketpropelled aircraft and has been designed jointly bv the Air Force, the Bell Aircraft Corporation, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, specifically to investigate supersonic flight problems. it was conceived early in 1945, and in 1946 was carried to altitude by a Superfortress, released and allowed to glide to earth. Its first flight under its own power was made at the Muroc flight test base, California, on December 9, 1946, after being dropped from a Superfortress.” It seems ligely that the machine now claimed to have reached 1000 miles an hour is a modified version of th e XS-1 prototypes described by Janes, which comments that the 1946 tests “have shown that the XS-1 is unlikely to achieve sonic speed in its original form.” The original XS-1 is described by Janes as a single-seat rocket-pro-pelled mid-wing monoplane for supersonic research. The wings are of aluminnim-alloy and the fuselage is also all-metal and of oval crosssection. A dorsal fin extends forward from the tail to the cockpit in the nose. The rocket outlet is in the extreme stern of the fuselage, under the rudder. The XS-1 has a nlan of 28ft, and is 31ft long and 10ft 10m hwh (top of rudder). Two estimates of maximum sneed for the original machine are given by Janes. A “pressuresystem” version was to have reached 1000 miles an hour at 60.000 ft. climbing at 28 000 ft a minute. K “tur-bine-pumn” version was expected to vopnh 1700 milas hour at 80.000 ft and to climb at 45,000 ft a minute. At its maximum static thrust the nressure-system type had a "maximum rocket endurance of 21- minutes; th” turbin p -mi n ' in - incorno l '- ated in the second prototype, was to allow the rocket fuel an endurance of 4.2 minutes at the same maximum static thrust (60001 b