Catapult Launching

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6620, 5 August 1931, Page 2

Catapult Launching

A huge bombing aeroplane, weighing. nearly nine tons < was catapulted into tho air at Farnborough, Hampshire, a few weeks ago, as easily as a boy catapults a stone, says a London paper. It was a new air wonder; a now scientific a/ehibvement. By this means a big bombing machine can be flung into the air instead of having to tako a long run along an aerodrome. “An experiment' in launching an aeroplane by catapult,” the demonstration was termed. It was a completely' successful experiment. Never before lias so great a machine been launched in- this way; it has opened up a wider sphere of utility for the great bombers which form such a vital part of the air .fleet.

' The new catapult, which does the “shooting;” was designed and constructed at the Boyal Air Force experimental station. It is a fearsome monster when in operation, but it is so designed that there is no difficulty in transporting it from place to place. There is no existing machinery with which the new appliance can be compared. One simple fact will show how revolutionary is its construction—the fact that in less than two seconds this catapult can develop 4000 horse powder, or three times the capacity of the world's fastest car.

All this energy is developed in two small cylinders with mushroom-shaped heads of steel not much more than 2ft in diameter. Those cylinders, which form the engine are cleverly geared to a giant drum ; around which

a cable revolves at terrific speed during the two seconds when the aeroplano is being launched. Tho motive power is of compressed air, supplied from six other cylinders giving a pressure of 6001 b to the square inch. ■ There were exciting moments during the preliminaries for the testing of this queer catapult. A Vickers V irginia bomber twdn-engined, and of such size that a man could walk comfortably under the wings, was brought into position, and to this one end of the cable from the drum was attached. The cable passed from the underpart of the aeroplane to a drum sunk in tho ground about 100yds ahead, and was then brought to the drum on the catapult itself, which was fixed at the back of the bomber. The operation of launching is very simple—the cable revolves around the drum in front of the machine at such a speed that the bomber is just flung into the air. Two pilots were in the bomber— Squadron-leader Castor and Flightlieutenant Evde. They sot side by side in the great cockpit, carefully adjusted their parachutes, then gave the “ready” signal. For precisely two seconds there was an inferno behind the bomber. By the pulling of a piece of cord a man had answered the pilot's signal and released the compressed air from the six cylinders. Before one could grasp what had happened tho cable was on the ground and the bomber with its pilots was high in the air. During those two seconds tho bomber had been thrown forward 100 yards, and had attained a speed of over sixty miles an hour. It circled over the aerodrome and then made a perfect landing.