MOTORING.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1230, 21 January 1918, Page 8

MOTORING.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. FORTHCOMING FIXTURE. February 16— Patriotic Motor Carnival, Canterbury Park. The Pioneer Club has now lost the ■services of Air P. R. Harman, who has served the club faithfully iu the capacity of secretary for the past five years. Mr Harman left to enter the CI training camp on Monday last. Early in the war he tried to get away voluntarily, but was turned down. When called in one of the ballots he also failed to come up to requirements, but he was one of those who, after review, was classed CI. Mr Harman's services were appropriately recognised last Saturday evening, when a presentation was made to him. It is intended when he comes down on leave to hold a suitable social function. Mr H. J. Knight will look after the interests of tho club, as secretary. A Tyre Test. An interesting tyre test was recently conducted by one of Australia's leading taxi companies The firm had been using Australian Dunlops with very satisfactory results —in fact, the tyre upkeep per mile was far below any; previous figures obtained by the taxi company. Some of the directors thought that they might get better results from another brand, tho result being that 12 taxis weie fitted up with the oversea tyres and pitted against the mileage return of the Australian product. Tho result of the test was very conclusive—the mileage run on the imported covers was less than recorded on the Dunlops fitted, which gave an all-round average of over 6000 miles per cover. A Brilliant Flight. An Australian writer recently receiv-' ed particulars of the aeroplane with which Capt. Laureati, of the Italian Air Service, made his sensatioual nonstop flight from Turin to London, a distance of 700 miles, iu 7£ hours. It is a tractor biplane, with a maximum horizontal speed of 100 miles per hour. The 300 h.p. Fiat motor is carried under a bonnet, and behind a radiator, as in pure motor car practice; indeed, the fore portion of the fuselage resembles a huge motor car without wheels. The engine is of a standard type, of which several thousands have been delivered to the Allied Governments. It has six separate steel cylinders, having welded-on sheet-steel water-jackets, and four inclined valves in the head, operated by a single overhead camshaft. A twin carburettor is employed, and there are two magnetos, firing a pair of plugs in each cylinder. The propeller is mounted direct on the camshaft, and runs at a speed of 1200 revolutions per minute. No better proof of the reliability and efficiency of the engine could be furnished than the iccord flight referred to. A Good Hint. A writer in the "Motor Cycle" (England), commenting on the fact that there is invariably a slight pull to the side to which the side-car is fitted, owing to the weight of the attachment and the camber of the road, states that the comfort of the rider is very much increased if the bars be adjusted so that the handle-grip nearest the car is nearer to him than the opposite one with the front wheel quite straight. He holds that this compensates, for the slight incline of the wheel when the machine is on the road, and it will be found that, with the bars adjusted thus, they are normally straight when travelI ling. CLUTCH.