BUILT FOR HEIGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1933, Page 10

BUILT FOR HEIGHT

FRENCH AEROPLANE. AN AIRTIGHT CABIN. There is greatly increased, activity at present at the Farman aircraft factory at Billancourf, where a monoplane designed to conquer the sky’s loftier regions has been-under construction for more than three years, stated the “New York Times” Paris correspondent in a recent letter to that -journal. •

M. Lucian-' Coupet, chief test pilot at the Farman works,, already has taken up the stratosphere aeroplane on . a series of low-altitude trial flights. He expects to make high-altitude tests before unfavourable wintery weather begins. It is hoped to reach ultimately an altitude of more than- eleven miles in the machine. Known as -the Farman AKFK,. it has been built'.uhder the' supervision of the French Govdrnmient and M. Henri Farman personally. It is now admitted that the machine is expected'. to be capable of a . speed of 430 miles an hour in the thin upper air. The machine’s ■ 350-horse-power Farman engine is expected; to develop greatly increased horse-power at an altitude of 42,000 ' feet: through -the ■ functioning of superchargers. ■ A special magnet is said to have eliminated all. outside sparks.. But the ship’s outstanding feature is jts airtight cabin, equipped with three compressors, to- assure: natural breathing for ffie pilot, machanic, and passengers in the upper zones of extremely rarefied

air, where great longrdistance flights will be undertaken at some’future date.-' The compressors’ serve two > purposes: to restore tire motor’s power at high altitudes, and to provide breathableair for the cabin’s occupants. '

Oxygen masks have been found: to -be impracticable -for prolonged flights' at high altitudes. The compressors-.feed the hermetically closed cabin with circumambient . air, compressed. to a pres- ’ sure corresponding l to that which prevails at an altitude Of 8500 feet That, air is purified before it is i distributed'' inside the cabin. It also must -first- be ; cooled to a desired temperature, as cqmt pression sometimes heats air to a temperature ’as high 'as 140 degrees ' Fahren-' heit.

The compressors are driven by the/ aeroplane’s' motor. . In case -.-, they fail', to function, properly,', there gency oxygen-producing appliances;. This special equipment makes use of ai chem< ical process to absorb the carbonic acid in the . air . produced :, by breathing .it.

The three compressors are fitted inside the cabin in a.'row, one above the other. The ’ engineers responsible for the machine’s construction: decided that three small compressors would be . more ef-. ficient and desirable than one large compressor,. which would quickly, become overheated. ; Huge radiators, the bulk of whicfi oqtside the cabin would increase, the ship’s wind resistance, would be necessary to cool the large compressor. On the other hand, three small flat radiators clamped tightly to the outside of the cabin would offer very little air resistance.

The ship has a wing spread of - sfisty-

• , ■ ■■ ’•■- ■•• • • ■ ■ •' . 1 —n •<’ '■"T"'-?' . 'f:-7 two feet, while;, the length from nose to tail-is thirty-six'feet. - " j ’•< • The cabin is constructed of duralumin and: aluminium, with -round glass' .windows in its sides and floor ' to': look through. It must be entered by a.roimi metal trapdoor in its top. The pilot can sit in three positions:, with-his hehd< exposed, with the eyes above the' fuselage top, or fully down in ' the. cabin-( with the hatch above. him . closed. He must, poke his head up through thia hole when' making his landing '