AIR SAFETY DEVICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 7

AIR SAFETY DEVICES.

Deep interest is being shown in French aviation circles in regard to new inventions for preventing aeroplane accidents which have been submitted to tho Undersecretary for Aeronautics (says the Paris correspondent of the London Morning Post). The inventor is Captain Lepinto, a member of tho French Army Air Forces, who has devoted himself for some years past to devising some means to assure safety in flying. The first of these inventions is based on a radical modification in the present methods of constructing aeroplanes with a view to assuring that tho machine is composed of two distinct parts, ono comprising tho motors and other heavy material, and the other the passenger carrying and supporting surfaces of the aeroplane. Captain Lepinto’s invention consists mainly of a mechanism so devised that at the critical moment—when, for instance, the aeroplane is in danger of crashing owing to tho motors having failed—tin engines can he detached and allowed to drop to tho ground, while the lighter parts of the aeroplane are instantly transformed into a kind of parachute, which will float gently to earth. Captain Lepinto’s second invention is much more interesting, and consists of a kind of exaggerated gun-barrel charged with powder, and attached to each side of the body of the aeroplane. This gunbarrel is so constructed that it can be discharged from cither end. If the aorop'ane is in danger of crashing through loss of way from engine trouble the pilot can fire the safety gun by electricity, and tho gas from the explosion, on being directed towards the rear at a pressure of one ton per centimetre, imparts such incensed speed to tho aeroplane that it is propelled forward like a bullet for a.n appreciable period, and gives tho pilot time to bring it to a safe landing by gliding. If, on tho other hand, the aeroplono is making a nose-dive, tho pilot by firing tho '"fety gun from tho forward end of it will produce the effect of putting a brake on tim nose of bis machine, a’-l retarding its downward flight long eno-’gh to give him time to bring the ’-■•..-.•bine back to a level keel by m-.-.i[minting his rudder.