AIR TRANSPORT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18756, 12 July 1935, Page 12

AIR TRANSPORT

EFFICIENT fleet ' EMPIRE ROUTES' (From a Special Correspondent) LONDON, May 28. •Right. Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta monoplane airliners which were commi - SS for service on the Empire.air routes hi 1935 have flown between theip many hundreds of-thousands of miles. Over » period' of nearly three years they have given satisfactory and efficient service, and have justified the numerous hold innovations embodied m their dedepartures, from contemporary fctipe, made by' the designers m Ml were adopted in an effort to create an airliner of higher aerodynam c efficiency than had been previously achieved. The four engines were mounted directly to the the undercairiaue was deliberately designed to be ot relatively narrow track so that the mam portion of the aircraft structure should be contained within, the fuselage lines, the composite cantilever mam plane was built of high tensile steel lattice beams and plywood covering, and all of tlie fuselage members were built up fiom high tensile drawn steel strip. Doubts expressed about the wisdom of attaching the power units directly to the main plane. In practice the arrangement has proved satisfactory and lias been widely adopted in the planning of subsequent aircraft. Location of the engines in-the leading edge of the wings has contributed largely to general-im-nrovement. in performance ; the Atalanta was one of the first commercial monoplanes to have the engines so placed. The construction of mam plane and fuselage has proved robust and troublefree. No structural failure of any kind has occurred and “maintenance costs have been exceptionally low in spite o the extreme heat and great humidity of the tropical regions where the Atnlantas fly. The undercarriage design has given no trouble; Atalanta machines have been able to alight and depart from landing grounds rendered sticky enough by heavy rains to prevent the operation of some other types of aeroplane. trustworthy POWER • The Siddeley Serval 340 h.p. engines installed in Imperial Airways Atalanta craft have accomplished an aggregate of more thn six million engine miles. No forced landing has been caused by engine failure and replacement costs work out at only one-third of a penny per engine mile. Seventeen passengers is the maximum capacity" of an Atalanta cabin, though for tropical use the accommodation is reduced to nine. The crew, consists of two pilots and a steward. Fully loaded, all * Atalanta weighs nearly 10 tons. Its -maximum level speed, reached at a height of 3000 ft. above sea-level, is 156 ib.p.h. and it cruises at 125 rn.p.h. On any three engines it maintains level flight, with full load, up to a height of 7000 ft. '