ALTITUDE FLYING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 109, 11 May 1931, Page 8

ALTITUDE FLYING

A GERMAN EXPERIMENT It is now a year or more since the Junkers works at Dessau, Germany, began preparations for building an experimental aircraft intended for research work at considerable altitudes. Lately, rumours have got about that the machine is to be used for attaining hitherto impossible heights. This is not the case, and the present machine is not intended to exceed the altitudes already reached. What the machine is, in fact, is a flying altitude laboratory. The machine, a Junkers monoplane, with Junkers super-charged engine, will have a flying weight of approximately four tons. The cabin has Deen built with double walls, airtight and strong enough to sustain considerable pressure. All controls are led out through the wails by airtight conduits, and ground-level air pressure will be main tained in the cabin by means of a com pressor. The preliminary flights will be made with the supercharger eady available, and when sufficient data have been collected by flight.-, with this, a new and improved supercharger will be built and installed in the same machine. Thus the “inter-planet” aircraft is still a long way out in the future, and the present experiment is but a prelim inary, although serious, step in the evolution of the future machine, which will fly at heights, thereby enabling great velocities to be attained. The present, machine will not have a performance materially different from that of the ordinary aeroplane.