AT 300 MILES AN HOUR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 November 1925, Page 9

AT 300 MILES AN HOUR.

AIRMAN’S SENSATIONS. A FAST AMERICAN MIDGET. A tiny airplane scorched through the air near New York last month at 302.3 miles an hour, faster than anything built by man ever had travelled hefore. Protected from the terrific air pressure by an enclosed cockpit, Lieut. A 1 Williams, naval aviator, with a dirty white shirt he wears for luck and the smile of a little boy out of school, made* history as his plane sped over the kilometre course (five-eighths of a mile) at Curtiss Field, Long Island. High above the watchers below he poised for an instant at the getaway. With the propellers at 2'500 revolutions a minute, cutting a. silvery circle, the plane swooped towards the wire. At breathless speed it drove, until it seemed that a crash could not be avoided. At 300 feet above the ground it straightened, and at more than five miles a minute roared over the course.

“It seemed impossible that a manmade mechanism could stand it,” Williams said in telling later about the record-breaking flight. “At 2,50 miles it seems you are travelling, but after that you really begin to feel the speed, with the world hopping past von. “You hurtle through the bumps of the rough air, and the wind against the plane is like terrific blows. To put your hand out would be like forcing it into the mouth of a spurting fire hvdrant.

“The nose of the ship followed by hand just as if I was pointing a pistol or aiming a rifle. The faster I went the more sensitive the controls became. At 300 , Unites an hour .the delicate touch required on the controls was like sounding a chord on a piano. Outside the pleasure, 1 had no sensation. 1 know now that nothing in the air is too fast for the eye, because I saw clearly everything that was going on. I should say that it is physically possible for man to stand another hundred miles an hour, or very probably even 500 miles.”

The plane is small as airplanes go. Tt is 20 feet from propeller hub to tail fin. 22 feet from wing tip to wing tip and at the highest point stands only eight feet above the ground.