NEWEST ’PLANES SEEN AT HENDON PAGEANT

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19109, 30 June 1930, Page 9

NEWEST ’PLANES SEEN AT HENDON PAGEANT

AMAZING CLIMBING SPEED DEMONSTRATED.

(United Press Assn.—By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received June 30, noon). RUGBY, June 29. The eleventh annual display of the Royal Air Force at Hendon yesterday waa a superb demonstration of the great progress made by British aviation, both military and civil. At least 150,000 people paid for admission and the principal enclosures were crowded, with distinguished personages. Prince George, representing the King and Queen, and Prince and Princess Takamatsu, of Japan, were present. The display maintained the remarkable unbroken record of freedom from accidents. Three squadrons of fighting *planes and three squadrons of bombing ’planes—altogether fifty-four . machines —gave a magnificent exhibition of concerted manoeuvring and fighting. A perfect display of formation flying was given by the City of London Day Bomber Auxiliary Squadron of Wapitis. The parade of the new types of machines was chiefly important for the examples of the latest interceptor fighter, which is a class peculiar to Great Britain, called for by the need for machines which can climb quickly enough to challenge fast enemy* bombers of whose approach only a few minutes’ warning may be possible. The new interceptor fighters have a speed of approximately 200 miles an hour and can climb to 10,000 feet in five minutes, to 15,000 feet in eight minutes and to 20,000 feet in twelve minutes. The Hawker Hornet machine, which is the supreme type, could not be on view, but there was a Fairey Firefly, the second type, of approximately the same performance, and a D.H.77 with its Napier 300 horse-power air-cooled engine, marking a new departure, which may prove technically very important. '