NEW BOMBER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24491, 27 December 1940, Page 6

NEW BOMBER

AMERICAN MANUFACTURE FAST AND DEADLY BRITAIN BUYS 1941 OUTPUT NEW YORK, Dec. 10. You may be hearing soon, and before long you may be seeing a new plane that is being made for Britain in one of the largest aeroplane plants in the United States (writes an aviation correspondent). It will be called the Baltimore Bomber. British air experts here think enough of it to have placed with the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore a strangely-worded contract. Britain has agreed to buy all planes of this type Martins can make between now and the end of 1941. Details of production plans are confined to the announcement that the planes will be turned out "in volume," that engineering work is virtually complete, and that production will start " shortly." Faster, Deadlier But the facts are available on a bomber which the Martin Company lias been and still is making for Britain, and it may be reasonable to guess that the new Baltimore Bomber will turn out to be a faster and more deadly version of this already fast and deadly plane. The Martin Company began largescale production last year of a machine called the 167 F. which was meant to combine the best features of both attack plane and bomber, and to give high performance at both high and low altitudes. By early spring this year Martins were turning out three of these planes a day—for the French. The machines that are now being produced are called 16784. They weigh 8£ tons, and have a wing spread of over 61ft. Bad News for Berlin. Another piece of bad news for Hitler is that out in Burbank, California, a vast new factory of the Vega Company—a Lockheed subsidiary—is working on another new twin-engined bomber, the Lockheed Vega 37, which is bigger and faster than the Lockheed Hudson that has served Britain so well and which has striking new devices to give it greater offensive power and greater immunity from attack. Britain has placed an order for £6,000,000 worth of these new bombers.