Britain’s Fast Warplanes

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 189, 12 August 1936, Page 13

Britain’s Fast Warplanes

THE SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE

Sir Philip Sassoon’s proud claim that the equipment of Britain’s expanded Air Force will bo second to none in the world is justified by tho extraordinary quality of tho new warplanes that aro now emerging from behind the curtain of official secrecy. Tho aircraft listed for assembly at Hendon on the occasion of tho Royal Air Force display included fighters and bombers of astounding abilities—fighters faster than any aeroplanes in the world except a very few racers and bombers capable of carrying immense loads at great speed over many hundreds of miles. At a recent demonstration of six types of aeroplanes designed and built by tho Vickers and Supermarine companies three of tho aircraft —a singleseat fighter and two bombers—were especially notable for flying performance and the use of novel methods of construction. Fastest in World. Tho fighter is the Supermarine Spitfire 1., a low-wing monoplane powered with a Rolls-Royce Merlin 12-eyclin<ler liquid-cooled engine. It is the fastest warplane in the world, capable of a speed considerably higher than 300 miles an hour. It does not carry as heavy a load as the Hawker monoplane lighter, which also exceeds 000 miles an hour. Both (he Spitfire and the Hawker monoplanes have been ordered in numbers for the equipment of lighter squadrons of the Royal Air Force. Designed by Mr. R. J. Mitchell, designer of the racing seaplanes that secured Great Britain permanent possession of the Schneider Trophy, the new fighter is a beautiful stream-lined craft with a highly-polished skin. A retractable underearriago diminishes head resistance in flight. Wing flaps enable the machine to giido in steeply and land comparatively slowly. Long-range Bombers. Equally notable is the new Vickers twin-engined bomber, constructed on the geodetic system invented by Mr. B. N. Wallis and developed by him in conjunction with the Vickers Company during the past four years. This is a mid-wing monoplane, deriving power from two Bristol Pegasus air-cooled radial engines. In flight the undercarriage units retract into recesses. This new bomber is the second type of warplane built entirely to the geodetic formula, advantages of which are lightness of structural weight, with corresponding gain in useful load, and a degree of quiet in its passage through the air, which is exceptional in a bombing aeroplane. Tho new Vickers bomber has no-special silencing arrangements, other than tlioso embodied m. tho efficient exhaust-gas collector rings of the Pegasus motors, but it flew past with little of tho noise generally as sociated with high-powered aircratt. The twiu-eugiued mackiuo can carry an enormous ioad in bombs and fuel, and is designed to cruise at high speed over long distances.