500 MILES AN HOUR

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3760, 25 May 1936, Page 3

500 MILES AN HOUR

IN SUB-STRATOSPHERE Sub-stratosphere flying at 20,000 to 30,000 feet tn aeroplanes with sealed cabins, capable of 500 miles an hour, are visualised by Mr R. D. Bowyer, an American aviation expert, who arrived from San Francisco by the Makura, en route to Sydney, where he is to take up a position with the Australian Airways Company. Present developments in aviation indicated that the sub-strato-sphere aeroplanes would be in common use in five years’ time, said Mr Bowyer, in an interview with a “Post” reporter.

The replacement of English machines with American is the reason for Mr Bowyer’s journey to Australia. He works for the Cord Corporation, which controls Stinsen Aircraft and American Airlines. The Australian company is importing from the United States three or four Stinson low-wing monoplanes, and it is to supervise their assembly and their initial flights that Mr Bowyer is going to Australia, where he expects to stay for a few mouths. The aeroplanes going to Australia are trimotored craft, with a cruising speed of 160 miles an hour, and accommodation for eight passengers and two pilots. They will run from Sydney to Brisbane and Melbourne and possibly further afield. Speaking of the enormous increase of passenger traffic by air in the United States, Mr Bowyer said that American Airlines had just ordered twenty new 32-passenger Douglas machines, and sixteen of the Stinsons mentioned. Even bigger aeroplanes, with four or possibly seven motors, were being planned, and sub-strato-sphere flying would convey passengers from Los Angeles to New York, with probably only two stops, in ten to twelve hours. Radio directionfinding equipment in United States aviation was very efficient, and was constantly being improved. Mr Bowyer is accompanied by his wife, who possesses a wide knowledge of aviation, and their infant son.