WAR INVENTION

Southland Times, Issue 19461, 28 January 1925, Page 7

WAR INVENTION

£15,000 FOR WIDOW 'Sun Special). LONDON, January 14. Among those awarded gratuities for war inventions by the Royal Commission are M. Constantinesco (who is also the inventor of a gearless motor-car) and Walter Haddon, who share £85,000 for oil impulse synchronising gear, enabling airmen to fire ma-chine-guns through revolving propellors. The widow of Commander Porte, designer of the ill-fated Felixstowe ferry aeroboat, will receive £15,000. Colonel John Cyril Porte, C.M.G., then Commander, R.N., invented and developed the flying boat. In 1914, the boats weighed well under two tons. In 1917 they weighed five tons, and an experimental boat, the “Porte Baby,” was so large that it carried on the top plane a scout land aeroplane, with its pilot. In 1918, the “Porte SuperBaby” was able to life 15 tons, and had engines giving 1800 h.p. These flying boats from 1917 until the end of the war, were most effective against German submarines. In that year 168 enemy submarines were sighted by aircraft, operating from England, and of these, 44 were bombed by flying boats.