DEFAINTS PRAISED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 166, 13 June 1940, Page 8

DEFAINTS PRAISED.

LONDON, May 31. The secret of the Bolton Paul Defiant fighter’s devastating power as a destroyer of the air is that it can fire at the enemy while doing practically any aerial manoeuvre, including standing on its head. No other fighter in- the world can fly in front of the machine it is attaking, and bring • four machineguns (with a terrific rate of fire) to bear upon tjie enemy. „ The Defiant’s speed is a secret, but experts reckon it is faster than the 340 m.p.li. Hurricane fighters used at the outbreak of tlie war. The R.A.F. is being suplied witn Defiants and 12 of them yesterday shot down 37 German bombers in a single engagement. Experts who to-day are acclaiming tlie Defiant’s glorious feats praise the machines and armaments, especially the rotating gunturret, asserting that no other fighter can dive into a foimatioii of aircraft, and, while flying on a parallel course, pour a withering fire into the machines on cither side The Daily Telegraph states that in the Defiant it is dear the R.A.F. has a design-triuriiph comparable with the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, which, with eight-gun converging fire, are the most formidable single-seat fighters in the world.