NOTABLE FEAT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23809, 9 November 1940, Page 8

NOTABLE FEAT

AEROPLANE ENGINES AUSTRALIAN CONSTRUCTION FIVE HUNDRED THIS YEAR [7BOM OUR OWN* correspondent] SYDNEY, Nov. 7 The first Australian-made Gipsy Major aeroplane engine has been installed by the De Havilland Company at Kingsford Smith airport, Sydney, in an Australian-built Tiger Moth initial trainer. Experts consider the engine to be as good as the imported type. The aeroplane was delivered to the Royal Australian Air Force this week.

Mr. J. Kerr, who is on loan to De Haviliand's from the Civil Aviation Department as a test pilot, and who has flown the machine fitted with the Australian engine, said that it behaved splendidly, and passed all living tests.

The De Havilland Company is building Tiger Moth air frames, but the licence to build Gipsy Major engines has been secured front the company bv GeneraT Motors-Holdens, which is making them in Melbourne. To lill in the gap until the Australian engines were produced in numbers, sufficient were imported by the Federal Government from the De Havilland parent company in Britain.

The successful manufacture of the Gipsy Major engines in Australia is generally considered to be an outstanding feat. Less than a year ago General Motors-Holdens had only incomplete blue prints, and now, with the exception of carburettors and magnetos, the whole of the engines are being made in this country. More than 40 different manufacturers in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide developed dies, jigs and fixtirfes for 500 different items and a steady flow of more than 1,000,000 bits and pieces, ranging from small bolts and nuts to crank <ases, connecting rods, pistons, cylinder barrels and cylinder heads, has been arranged. It is expected that the 500 engines ordered will be delivered within a year.