A GERMAN EXPERIMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20867, 8 May 1931, Page 16

A GERMAN EXPERIMENT.

It is how a year or .more since the Junkers works at Dessau. Germany, began preparations for building an' experimental aircraft intended for research work at considerable altitudes. Lately, rumours have got about that the machine is to he used for attaining hitherto impossible heights. This is not the case, and the present machine is' not intended to exteed the altitudes already reached. What the machine is, in fact, is a flying altitude laboratory. The machine, a Junkers monoplane, with Junkers supercharged engine, will have a flying weight of approximately four tons. The cabin has been built with double walls, airtight and strong enough to sustain considerable pressure. All controls arc led out through the walls by airtight conduits, "and ground-level air pressure will be maintained in the cabin by means of u compressor. The preliminary flights will be made with the supercharger already available, and when sufficient data have been collected by flights with this, a new and improved supercharger will lie built and installed in the same machine. Thus the " infer-planet" aircraft is still jt long way out in the future, and the present experiment is but a preliminary, although serious, step in the evolution of the future' machine, which will fly at heights, thereby enabling great velocities to lie attained. The present machine will no/ have /;• performance materially irlift'erent from that of the ordinary acroJilant'.