SPEED TO-MORROW

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3328, 28 July 1931, Page 3

SPEED TO-MORROW

TRAVELLING 1000 MILES AN HOUR. Secret flying trials are in progress for,what should prove the most thrilling speed pageant the world has ever seeiW|the air race for the Schneider of 1931. Breath-taking spectacle though this should be, it has also a practical significance, because the speeds of air races to-day may be the pace of the long-range mailplanes of to-morrow. With a murmur which rises to a roar, a racing seaplane, like a gleaming winged pro"jgßctile, rushes across the sky and vanishes with queer, distant mutterings. Up in that hurtling craft, sitting low in a cockpit shielded from the wind, is a pilot watching an indicator, the needle of which creeps round its dial till it is registering speeds which would seem fantastic to ordinary folk. Amid all our modern wonders there is nothing quite so stirring to the imagination as this never-ceasing quest for speed, and still more speed. It is no idle quest. Not many years ago I stood near a large aerodrome and watched the first racing plane which attained 100 miles an hour (writes Mr Harry Harper, the distinugished aviator and author, in the Daily Mail). . That seemed wonderful to us then. But what was a freak performance in those days is the pace of a big multi- . engined air liner to-day; and what is racing speed to-day should be the rate of travel of our mail-planes to-

morrow. - ' i These young pilots who are preparing to shoot through the air in the Schneider race at speeds no human being has reached before are to be applauded not only as gallant sportsmen but as pioneers of super-speed transport. Secrecy shrouds the preparations for this epic of speed. It is a struggle not only of piloting but of technical skill; it is a battle, of wits between aircraft and engine designers as well as between airmen. These 1931 air-racers will, in lightness, strength, speed, and power, be the most astonishing piece of mechanism ever evolved by man. It ;s hard to envisage the actual pace they are likely to attain at moments of their swiftest flight. We are not yet in the habit of thinking in terms of such lightning, movement. Suppose, as is believed, some of them do attain for brief spells 400 miles an hour—that is more than six and a-half miles a minute. • What do six and a-half miles a minute mean ? In one second one of these roaring speed jiplanes- will have flashed over a distance of nearly 200 yards. Almost as exciting, though in a different way, are the secret tests Which are beinj£ made by experts of new racing aero-engines—marvels of lightness and power. Picture some . large, lonely shed in which men in overalls are standing round a machine of gleaming cylinders poised on a massive bench. Suddenly the monster wakes to life with a rather sleepy drone. After a minute or so the man at the throttle-lever looks at one of the engineers. The latter nods, whereupon the mechanic at the lever moves it slightly. The drone changes to a growl, and the growl to a mighty roar. Another movement of the lever and the monster raises its voice to an enormous hever-ceasing din. The shed is filled with a hurricane of sound which seems to be beating out a savage rhythm; to be singing some clamorous song of distance-devouring speed and power. In flying the wonder of yesterday is the routine of to-day; to-day’s marvel becomes commonplace to-morrow.

Calculations have indicated that if a

modern racing plane were raised from ±he dense air of lower levels to a 4meight of 10 miles or so above the earth, the pace it could then attain—granted that its engine and propeller could be niade as efficient in this high altitude as in atmosphere nearer the earth—should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1000 miles an hour. The idesL almost takes one’s breath

are experts who believe that ' the attainment of enormous speeds in the lessened air resistance at tre- ' mendous heights may be the great filial conquest of aviation.. Already motors are being made to operate efficiently at ever-increasing heights, and the development of air-screws which vary automatically the angle . or pitch of their blades offers a prac- ' tical method for adapting prope ers to high altitudes.. Experiments are Y.'also proceeding with a view to ee P ing the air in enclosed saloons great heights in just as " breathable :.. a condition for passengers as it is at C ground level. ; ; When, sooner perhaps than scentics think, aerial voyagers do attain prodigious speeds on long flights at ig altitudes, one may picture a business man rising early one morning, say in London, and remarking casually, “ I’m going to slip over to New York , t and have a chat with So-and-so to- . ■ day.” This, as a matter of course, • he does, hurtling to and fro across the Atlantic at such a pace that he has reached New York, had his busit ness talk, and is. back again in Lon-

don that same evening. Such pro-jectile-like travel implies not merely a new era; it suggests a new world—a world grown so amazingly small that journeys which now last days, or even weeks, will shrink till they occupy not more than a few hours.