4.
96
Supreme Aircraft Builders.
No less than twenty-four British aircraft manufacturing firms have combined to demonstrate, through the British section of the Belgian ero Salon, which opened in Brussels on the 8th of July, that Britain is maintaining her leadership in aeronautical research
and development. Round the stand of the British Air Ministry are grouped aircraft of various types, engines ranging in power from 50 to well over 1,000 horse-power, fuselages and accessories which
together occupy more than one third of the entire exhibition space.
Such famous military machines as the Spitfire, the Hurricane,
the Fairey and others are on view, and towering above them the Vickers Wellington bomber, a "geodetic" machine capable of a non-
stop flight of 3,240 miles with full military load. The geodetic
principle attains a minimum of structural weight with a maximum
of strength by employing as a foundation for the fabric covering,
a kind of basket work of light metal spirals, and the Vickers
Wellington is the second of this type to be produced.
The first geodetic machine was the Wellesley, which set up a world record last autumn by flying non-stop from Egypt to
Australia, a distance of over 7,000 miles. It is computed that
the Wellington, specially prepared for an utmost-distance flight,
could cover 10,000 miles before its fuel was exhausted. Even in
military form its range is such that the greater part of the world could be covered from three strategic bases only, for instance
Great Britain, Egypt and Australia.
The aircraft displayed in the R.A.F. section have been
chosen to indicate the quality of both offensive and defensive
types of aircraft in service in Great Britain.