SECRET PAINT FOR PLANES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23378, 18 December 1937, Page 16

SECRET PAINT FOR PLANES

NEW METHOD OF PREVENTING ICE Striking results are claimed for an anti-icing compound, known as “killfrost,” painted on the wings, control surfaces, and propellers of aeroplanes, which has been developed for Imperial Airways. At a demonstration at Croydon the compound was smeared over the vulnerable parts, but conditions were not favourable for an actual test in ice-forming conditions. While it is not claimed that this method is yet perfect, it is urged (the air correspondent of the Daily Telegraph writes) that it is efficacious enough in its present form, to justify its immediate use. Mr Halbert, the inventor, said he hoped that means would be devised by which the compound would be mechanically distributed, and the mechanism automatically actuated by the advent of ice-forming conditions. Imperial Airways flying-boats and other air liners now have their vulnerable parts painted with the compound. It is stated that Captain Powell, the commander of the Cambria, reported, after the last of her recent flights across the Atlantic, that after two hours of blinding rain, the compound remained in sufficient quantity to be efficacious. In one experiment a wireless aerial not coated with “ killfrost ” broke under the weight of the ice on it; another aerial, which had been coated, was in no way impaired. The nature of the compound is a secret. The weight sufficient for one Empire flying-boat is about 301 b, and the cost works out at about 2s 6d per lb. In the United States an ice-break-ing contrivance has been officially approved. It consists of a flat rubber tube along the leading edge. The mechanically in-duced pulsation* of the tuba break up the ic®.