NEW PURSUIT ’PLANE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 196, 20 July 1937, Page 9

NEW PURSUIT ’PLANE.

FASTEST IN THE WORLD. AMERICAN CLAIMS. NEW YORK, July IS. The New York Times’s Washington correspondent says that the army has purchased a low-winged, twin-engined pursuit monoplane, which is believed to be the fastest military aircraft in the world. It is capable of a sustained speed of more than 300 miles an hour with a military load, including a crew of five, of whom three operate six gun 6 capable of being fired in all directions and mounted in two fighting cockpits, starl>oard and port, with free front-field fire and with observation uninterrupted by propeller or engine. The machine also carries light bombs, a radio man and a pilot. It is so radical in design and violent in striking power and capable of 6uch speed in climbing that new tactics must be devised in order to use it to the best advantage. Its hugeness enables the crew to exchange stations and to confer with' each other while in flight. Telephones connect the crew with all compartments, which are heated for performance at an altitude of more than 30.000 feet. Petrol is stored in a compartment in the wing, thus reducing the fire hazard. After experimental flights tlie monoplane is being sent to Langley Field, Virginia, for mock battles with the “flying fortresses,” hitherto regarded a.s the most formidable air force in ex’stence. The “flying fortresses are 20-ton lvombers recently constructed which officials of the United States Army Air Corps stated would startle the world in altitude capacity and ability.