AVIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 10

AVIATION

FLIGHT IN THE STRATOSPHERE (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Sept. 5. Experimental flights, in the course of which a new worjjl record may be set for height above sea level reached by a heavier-than-air flying machine, are scheduled to begin this month in an aeroplane built for high altitude flying research at one of Britain's largest aircraft factories. The present aeroplane height record, set recently by the French pilot,' Georges Detre, is 14,836 metres (48,760 feet), or approximately nine miles and a-quarter. How high the new British craft is expected to go is a closely-kept secret, but a new record should be well within its powers. Flight at great heights holds fascinating possibilities, though its successful and everyday achievement depends on the solution of vast technical problems. Professor G. T. R. Hill, Kennedy professor of engineering at London University, has dismissed the dream, cherished by some, of travel at great heights at more than 1000 m.p.h., but he talks hopefully of cruising at nearly 300 m.p.h. at levels around 40,000 feet as a likely achievement of the next few years. His expectations are based on available research and the likely advance of engine supercharger development in the next year or two. British aircraft and engine builders have done much of the research and practical experiment needed to produce the successful stratosphere machine. Chief difficulties are maintenance of adequate power output and provision of reasonable living conditions for crew and passengers at heights where' the atmosphere is far too thin to support life. Cabin and engines must be supercharged, the cabin must be hermetically sealed and equipped with apparatus .to generate breathable air and to exhaust or absorb used air. In a plane not intended to carry passengers—a stratosphere bomber, for example—the pressure cabin might be eliminated and each member of the crew might live in a supercharged suit, analogous in its function to a diving suit. Already British engine designers have a vast amount of information about conditions that must be met to assure :afe flight at great heights. Three times has a Bristol engine powered the aeroplane holding the world height record; the Italian Donati, who held the record till it was exceeded a few days ago by Detre, flew an aeroplane equipped with a supercharged Pegasus 1100 h.p. motor. The new high-flying aeroplane, designed and built by the Bristol Company, has satisfactorily completed flying trials equipped with an ordinar 1 ' supercharged motor. A special engine is to be installed for the experimental flights, which will be made by a Royal Aii Force pilot. It will drive a controllable-pitch airscrew.