BUDGET OF BRITISH AIR NEWS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19329, 2 November 1932, Page 9

BUDGET OF BRITISH AIR NEWS

AIRCRAFT IN BUSINESS WORLD. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, Sept. 20. Business firms are recognising in increasing numbers the value of air transport. Among the companies to start an air service for delivery of goods recently is J. S. Fry and Sons, the chocolate manufacturers. At Somerdale, Somerset, they inaugurated a special delivery air service. Lord Apsley performed the opening ceremony, a “Puss Moth” being used for the first journey. It took 4cwt. of goods to a London customer. • At present only one machine is used; but if the experiment proves successful. a fleet of machines will be ordered and will operate from the company’s own aerodrome at Somerdale. It is intended to use the “Puss Moth” on any route for the delivery of emergency orders and not exclusively between Somerdale and London. Thus it will go to Glasgow. Liverpool, Newcastle, Plymouth.' Belfast or any other place where quick delivery has been demanded. Lord Apsley flew over to Somerdale in his own light aeroplane in order to open the new service. The Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales, when making his arrangements for travelling to Copenhagen for the exhibition, selected the new Armstrong-Whitworth “Atalanta.” monoplane as his mode of transport. It is the first one of the fleet of these machines ordered by Imperial Airways and it has a cruising speed of 120 miles an hour so that the journey between London and Copenhagen should be done in about 51 hours. Four engines are fitted to the “Atalanta,” the type being the ArmstrongSiddeley “Double Mongoose,” each of 340 h.p. The passenger cabin is 17ft 6in long and special care is taken to give the occupants the highest possible degree of comfort. Shortly after the Prince’s flight these machines will come into service on the regular lines when a considerable acceleration of the schedule for the flight between England and South Africa will be possible. With the Page type. 42 airliners and the Short flying boats, which operate on the Mediterranean sections of the routes to the east, the British air services will have the most luxurious passenger aircraft in existence No other air line fleet can offer such spacious cabins or such silence in flight as these machines; and for this reason the number of passengers choosing the British line is steadily increasing. Business people especially, who have to work while they are travelling, find the silence and spaciousness of the cabins of the British machines essential. 500 Hours Engine Service. The Rolls-Royce “Kestrel” engines now in service in large numbers in the Royal Air Force, have been consistently doing 400 hours without overhaul of any sort in the squadrons. Recently a test was done with three of these engines taken at random by the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate of the Air Ministry. The engines were run for 500 hours without being overhauled or adjusted. , They were then stripped and examined with minute care. As a result, it has been decided by the Air Ministry to increase the periods between overhaul from 400 to 500 hours in the Service squadrons. These engines will not only be the fastest standard engines in use in any air force in the world, but they will also hold the record in trouble-free running between overhauls. From the Service point of view the additional hours run between overhauls will be of the greatest importance; for they will not only lead to increased economy on a very large scale owing to the number of aircraft now in use with this type of engine; but they will also add to the effective strength of the air force at any given moment. Troop Transport. Air staffs in many parts of the world are turning their attention more and more to means of co-operation between ground troops and aviation. The advantages for police work of the troop carrier were well demonstrated at Cyprus, and considerable attention is being paid in Great Britain to the development of new types of troop transport aeroplanes. One of these types is the Gloster four-engined machine that attracted so much notice when it appeared for the first time in public at the" Royal Air Force display at Hendon. This machine has the special quality of versatility; for it can be used not only for troops, but also for the conveyance of supplies and even spare engines. The special derrick apparatus enables heavy loads to be stored in the fuselage quickly and efficiently and without the demand for large numbers of men. Troop transport aircraft are convertible to bombers; but they are not intended to take the place of bombers and specialised heavy bombers are now being made the subject of tests in the R.A.F. Among the machines whose qualities are being investigated is the Boulton and Paul, three-engined night bomber. It has been found that certain notable military advantages accrue from the high position of the engine in the Boulton and Paul machine, one of them being the absence of any fuselage tremor due to engine. This tremor may be sufficient to affect the accuracy of the bombing when an engine is mounted directly in the nose of the fuselage. It is therefore probable that, whatever the typq chosen, the next R.A.F. heavy bomber will be without a nose engine.