1940-11-16 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 16, 1940.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR HOUSE.

STUBBORN EIRE

Canada's comment on Mr. de Valera's refusal to permit Britain to counter

Of The

War Birds

World

'For the past ten years aircraft designers have been straining every nerve in a race, whose prize better and better fighting aero- is national existence, to produce,

planes.

The purse-strings of European;

with other for them. Certain existing models queue up in anxious files,

en

Its

Germany's U-boat bases exchequers have been unloosed at Lorient and

It weighs more than thirty tons. have cost--not thousands. of eyes glittering, and mouths slight-Over 670,000 manhours of French ports, with bases pounds, but hundreds of thousands y open in dreams of ecstasy-with gineering work and shop labour in Southern Elre, indi- pounds to bring them to their them among the clouds.

present condition of almost super- cates that sentiment natural perfection. Men have For twenty years it has been against Eire's stubborn died from the worry of improv- my daily job to test the best.

ing them. Men have died these witches of the skies, to-mas- disregard to plain facts is through accident in the engineer- ter them, to make them show me growing not only in Uls-ing shops when producing them. their paces.

ter, where it is strongest, but in all places where in- telligent thinking is still possible.

Test pilots have died trying to do

the impossible with them.

of:

Some of Britain's best (and that, to-day, spells the world's best And now, on the vast military once again, though it was not so urlields of Europe, they stand last year), I have chidden and gleaming monsters that have corrected and brought up almost destroyed men and whose very like my own children.

Not only are the denial purpose is to destroy men, darl- of bases needed to defendings for whom men have died. Over the stoves. that warm the gladly, and merely to Ay: which pilots' rooms in Europe's greatest Ireland as well as Eng-young men scheme and pray and hirfields, I have gossiped with for- land at issue, but also the question of sending back to their respective coun- tries the Italian and Ger-

to feel

• man Ministers in Dublin.

It is not easy happy with the knowledge that the diplomatic staffs of aggressor nations are present in the capital of Eire, at a time when Nazı submarines are sinking ships off the Irish coast. The close proximity of Dublin to England: per- mits the Ministers of totalitarian states. to have access to information which might not be in the best interests of England in her valiant struggle. The fact that the Nazi Le- gation in Dublin is vastly overstaffed-having fifty

or sixty persons-adds to the disquiet.

The problem for Ireland is by no means simple.

By Captain H. C. Biard,

Test Pilot and Söhneider Trophy Winner.

carry over ten thousand pounds of bombs and ammunition as well as a large crew.,.

went into its construction. wing span, is one hundred and

In Germany, Junkers and Dor- fifty feet from tip to tip; Britain's nier bornbers attain similar pro- biggest is about one hundred feet. portions and performances. Years ago, I flew à Dörnier twelve-en- There are over seven miles of glued monster that could carry wiring in the electrical system one hundred and sixty people. Do aboard. It has a massive double-a sum in simple arithmetic; re- truck lending gear, with four huge place the people by bombs, multi- pneumatic tyres but this gear and ply by two to account for pro- the tail wheel are retractable, to gress in the interim, and the an- offer less wind resistance when swer, which is staggering, tells flying.

you something of one of many's weapons to-day.

In Russia, the CKB and ANT.

her

hull

The kitchenette in the would be a modern house-wife's types

Ger-

delight, could she but forget the are bigger still. Italy

run close-or, perchance, menace of the machine's existence; Savoia-Marcheitis; has

The "Flying Fortress;:' triumph of American aeronautical dəylan, kas now been murd

Wat able to Britain. The machine, whose official name le the Boeing B-178 bombey Is a másslv&: 4- engined plane well protected by cannon and machilhe-guns. These photographs were takendur.. ing construction of the bombers at the Boeing: Aircraft: Compány's Plant. In this picture we ree the wings which are assembled' in four rections; two separate wing tips and two separate middle sections in which the engines are installed;

Britain has Whitleys, Hampdens, Wellingtons; Wellesleys, Heyfords and plenty

more.

Marvels? Terrors? It all depends on the way you look at it!

And then the fighters! Whirling like dead leaves in the skies, able to stoop like hawks and to belcr death like dragons, they are per haps the greatest wonder of all man's mechanical miracles.

There is, for instance, the hor- net-like Heinkel "He 112 U," with its strange up-curved wing, and its astounding speed: of over 470 in.pth: in level flight.

T

I have power-dived British ma- chines at well over 500 m.p.h., but that is another story and I dare not tell it because it contains official secrets..

And the almost fabled U S. Lockheed, a monoplane of revolu- tionary design, with а sort of double fuselage, carrying (if we cay believe it), twin 2250-Hap.. „ARIUSOmengines; a twin til assem-, biy, and capable of a speed over 500 m.p.h. already!

of

Then there is a new British gliter. No one is supposed to now anything about it It is a fighter of tremendous range,

a

must not omit the long-nosed Eblem, built as a bomber, but so amazing in performance that it Eire is neutral. Legally it

Hies: Been adapted as a lieavy and has the right to do what

formidable fighter with a top 'spred of about 310mph, it likes. It has now com-

range-of-two-thousand-miles and: a heavy armament. Or the Ameri- plete military control!

|can- Beli Airácuda twin-engined over its own ports, an pitch a new tale from time cign test pilots about their fav-it contains an electric Holpity, pusher fighter, with its

two big. ourite machines. I have tramp-percolator,. soup Heaton and dry 34 mm cannons and four ma interest' in which Brit- to time. He now says that cd out on to the glaring tarmac icebox and it is decorated in chine-guns, manned by a crew of ain in a conciliatory mo- after the war Hitler will wings, caressed

with them, touched oustretched gleaming chromium and white. ve Or the Italian Fiat "G-50" the gleaming Working, sleeping and Jving and Macchi "C200", for both ment abandoned, and of abolish compulsory milit-hearts of fighters and bombers quarters aboard are sound proof which speeds round the 400 mip.h.

never intended for foreign eyes to ed, heated and ventilated..

mark are claimed.

that it controls only the ary service, provide long see-even taken some of them

roaring up the skies, and thrilled Modern safety devices include The Russians have some good

day?

its air bases. It is true southern part of the is week-ends for German to feel under my hands the throb- elaborate radio equipment; in-ones, though they are not quite up land and therefore can workers, and see to it that bing life of aircraft built to chal-tricate navigation instruments, to top notch.

One of Germany's best is the reckoning, an not prevent the British they have an extended enge Britain's own superlatives. cameras for daylight star-photo-

graphy for dead In the Winged Brotherhood, automatic pilot, de-icing installa-Dornier "Do 17" twin-engined from enjoying air bases programme of sunshine

a semi-high and essential port "facil-cruises. It sounds distinct- these things happen the men who tions, wing flaps to reduce speed battleplane. It is

have plunged with broken wings when landing, and amazing fire- wing monoplane with retractable landing gear, distinguishable by ities" in the North. Yet y agreeable, but unfor- like Icarus out of the heavens, protection apparatus,

its slender fuselage and double- Eire's security virtually last year the same Dr. Ley what can I tell you about

tunately about this time learn a kinship that is stronger

The pilot's cockpit than ties of race of blood, And Armament includes six large rudder unit,

the gun emplacements each of which is in the nose, beyond the air- depends upon the British

to- carries blasting machine-guns or screws' level-an all-glass nest fleet and air force. Her was promising the same best of the world's aircraft

quick-firing

of which also contains two machine- cannon, some which latter throw nearly German workers that they

one guns. Behind this is another gun- economic prosperity, too;

thousand three-pound high explo- ner's compartment, with two more What is there for a pilot to say? sive shells per minute. is bound up with the fut would be joy-riding round

high-power guns, and behind this I' am not a poet, to set words

the Bomb compartment. ure of England. Therefore Bournemouth by the end

uffre as I tell of the glory of thun- Speed, is somewhere in the re- Two 1,200-h.p. engines give a the concern of the Empire of October, 1939, on spe- dering through the tenderness of gion of 280 m.ph. In addition to top speed in the region can m.p.h., and the machine cially conducted tours to morning at seven miles a minute! a large crew, the machine is understandable. It is a

1 cannot picture for you the god-carry nearly fourteen thousand very long ringe. concern which Mr. Chur- inspect the new Nazi colliness of dropping like a thunder-inunds of bombs and ammunition Finally, I come to the British

"Spitfire," ony of Britain. And earl-bolt out of heights where the puny as a war load.

developed directly chill has again expressed

of the earth is forgotten.

from a series of Schneider racers, and it is obviously an obier this year Dr. Ley was,

When this monstrous bombersome of which I had the honour I could quote you figures, dry its four stupendous engines, silen- It is a day and night single-seat

alles over a city, the deep note of or flying for Brithin. stacle to better relations of course, one of the ard- between the North and ent spokesmen for the as dust, that would stir the images the anti-bill activity below, fighter, with a range of over one South

theory that peace would nation of an expert to reeling the great wings cut off the sun- thousand miles, its eight machine-

fantasies; but to the layman they tight, and women look suddenly guns entirely concealed in be signed in Buckingham mean nothing.

st their children, stopping their wings. :/ Palace by August 15. Re-

play to point excitedly upwards. I have flown as part of a for- flecting on the fate of So the best. I can do is to try

mation attacking a towed target, to describe, words, Scarcely formidable is the and seen it riddled through

LEY, PRONOUNCED LIE those two prophecies, Ger-

•

of 400 has

the

one or the marvels that the US Army "plying Fortress," said aroys tracer bullets: till it looked

man workers may well be world's most wondrous machin to be the fastest heavy bombor in like u cushion spitted by a thou Dr. Ley, the leader of a little sceptical about can perform and if I give the world. Already, the United and silver rapiers, and the lot of you secrets from Germany, Italy, States has some sixty of these bomber squadron: being attack- the Labour Front and long week-ends and no France, and United States and dreadful giants in use.

ed by formations of modern Soviet Russid; you may sült bæ

fighters of the "Spitfire" type is Strength Through Joy more military service. sure that I shall not disclose any An all-metal monoplane, pow- nis fül imberla

What marvels, they are, these movement, is apparently Like that "People's Car of England's, and so you must add ered by four 1,000-h.p.. Cyclone"

soihething to my words before engines it has a range of well mechanical war birds! What a one of the more versatile and the Bournemouth you can estimate even the edge over thee thousand miles, and a world It will be when all this performers in German joyrides, these schemes are of what is hidden in our mighty top speed of about 300 mph. Five human ingenuity and all the mil- gun-nest blisters protect its lions of money spent on them is propaganda; either by excellent as ideas but eye-

(sleek, streamlined Body, some turned again to the legitimate. choice or necessity it is wash when it comes to Let me begin with the biggest beneath the hull, some above, one work of ferryings goods, business thing that fllegi stupendous U. Sin the tip of the thick glass nose, men and pleasure parties through one of his distinctions to performance..

Army Boeing "XB16."

Hone in the extreme tail; it carla 'new world's' uncibuded skies!

.

aircraft hneds. "