POWERFUL AIR WEAPON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20841, 7 April 1931, Page 6

POWERFUL AIR WEAPON

NEW BRITISH WONDER. SIX MACHINE-GUNS. NEARLY 200 MILES AN HOUR [from our own correspondent.] LONDON. Feb. 26. Royal Air Force pilots have completed, at the experimental establishment at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich, secret tests of a new type of single-seater fight-, ing aeroplane, which may revolutionise air combat. This new air weapon, the first of its kind in the world, is virtually a flying gun platform, able to move in level flight at a speed of -nearly 200 miles an hour, and equipped with no fewer than six machine-guns, controlled in unison from the pilot's cockpit, instead of the two guns forming normal equipment of a service single-6eater. The "multi-gun" principle enables the pilot to concentrate on his target a literal cone of fire, each gun being so arranged that the bullets converge toward a focal point a few hundred yards from the machine. Such formidable armament obviously increases to a marked degree the fighting qualities of the single-seater fighter aeroplane, which is the weapon of the squadrons forming the backbone of Britain's defence against air attack. The new machine is a biplane, styled prosaically the S.S. 19, and is the latest war machine produced by the Glosr.er Aircraft Company, builders of more than 300 single-seater fighters used in the Royal Air Force during recent years. It is powered with a supercharged radial 480 h.p. Bristol "Jupiter" air-cooled engine, and in official tests at Martlesham, carrying a full military load, has sustained a speed of 194 miles an hour, and climbed to a height of 15,000 ft. —nearly three miles—ir. nine minutes.

In grooves at each side of the fuselage are fixed two Vickers guns equipped with synchronising gear to fire through the. disc swept by the airscrew. Just outside the airscrew radius four Lewis guns are mounted in the wings, the barrels projecting a few inches from the front edge of each of the upper and lower wings. The armament of the machine is completed by bomb racks to carry four 201b. bombs. In 50 hours of intensive test flying at Martlesham the S.S. 19 showed notable performance, not only in speed and rate of climb, but in ease of control and handling qualities. Not a single repair was needed to the structure of the machine, though v the flights imposed the most severe stresses. Even in dives at more than 320 miles an hour the craft, remained perfectly steady, showing no sign of vibration or strain. At ground level the S.S. 19 attained 170 miles an hour. Thence upwards to 10,000 ft. the machine Hew faster and faster, the supercharger fitted to the engine coming into action with increase in height. Even at 20,000 it. the machine was able to maintain a speed of no less than 176 miles an hour.