NEXT – FIVE HOURS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Northern Advocate, 8 February 1936, Page 3

NEXT - FIVE HOURS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Across the Atlantic in five hours was the picture conjured up recently by Professor G. T. R. Hill, Kennedy Professor ‘of Engineering at London University, in a paper on “Travel in the Stratosphere,” read to the Royal Society of Arts. “We may be able to look in the reasonably near future for an aeroplane cruising at 275 m.p.h., and capable of carrying four passengers across the Atlantic with 800 h.p.,” said Professor Hill. “This is, of course, a small unit, and it seems that larger sizes will really be needed for this kind of journey, if only to provide more comfort for the passengers.” By taking advantage of the “high winds of the tropopanse,” the journey might be reduced to five hours. But the need for comfort of passengers would be realised when it was considered that they would be kept in their cabin for probably seven or eight hours at a stretch. Professor Hill pointed out that the whole atmosphere could be divided into two zones: the troposphere—up to about 35,000 feet —in which the air temperature falls with height; and the stratosphere—above 35,000 feet — where the temperature is constant. “Between these two zones is the tropopanse, where the temperature pauses in its fall. “Far up into the stratosphere, the temperature actually rises,” he said. “At 160,000 feet —some 30 miles up—it is believed to be about as warm as on the ground, and 200 miles up the temperature has risen so much that a piece of steel, if it were up there, would become red-hot, and brass would melt.”