CATAPULTING A ’PLANE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16806, 12 August 1925, Page 7

CATAPULTING A ’PLANE.

“THE GAT.LOPIXG GOOSE.’’

. < (Special to the Herald.) i.0.i;,. AUCKLAND, this day. ■ 'The Galloping Goose” is.the commentary name for the monoplane

carried ’by the Mississippi. All venae s : 'entry aircraft, but the only monoplane with the fleet is that on the Mississippi. It is a reconnoitring craft, not a fighting plane, but the officers and men of the battleship are proud of her, though dubbed with a not altogether flattering (appellation when catapulted into the air. However, she belies the ungainliness which one might associate with the goose, and she soared over the Wnitomafa with bird-like precision. The ordinary method of unloading seaplanes from a battleship is to shoot them oft a cradle lying parallel with the ship’s deck, by means of compressed air. The “Galloping Goose,” however, is truly shot into the air. Instead of compressed air, powder is utilised.. A cartridge about 30 inches long is insetted in a gun along the cradle, and when the plane has speeded up to a great rate, the signal is given and the cartridge fired. The cradle lias been fotcod out with the “goose’s" beak into tho wind, and barely has the explosion occurred before the monoplane is soaring in the air. It is claimed that the Mississippi lias the only devise in the world for so catapulting a plane.