Republican farmer., 1919-05-30
DESIGN AIRPLANE TO CROSS OCEAN
 IN HALF A DAY

New York, May 24-(Special Cor respondence)-An aerial leviathan of the bat-wing type, without stay-wire, expected to travel at the rate of 250 miles per hour, has been designed, and may be in process of construction, according to William Dinwiddie, an unofficial investigator of the aircraft industry. The project is cloaked in much secrecy. but MT Dinwiddie, in an article on Air Travel Possibilities in the June Cen tury, reveals some of the details of the design of the huge plane, which, because it has TO parasite resistance from struts and wires, could probably cross the Atlantic in 12 hours.
 "A three -hundred-foo wing-span bat-wing, cantilever airplane would be capable of lifting an effective load of from fifty to seventy thousnd pounds; that is, dead-weight freight closely and carefully packed to ap- proximately 25 tons could be trans ported in the monster. Twelve hours or even less for transatlantic fiightI may sound like the romances of Nun chhausen, but the non-parasite-re- sistance airplane of the bat-wing type, or some modification of its form, is firmly believed by certain air en- gineers to be the final solution of the air-speed problem.
 There are a number of very radi- cal plans inthe hands of designers of aircraft that are expected to revo- lutionize the whole art of flying. and which it is hoped by the more en- thusiastic leaders, will give us air transportation on a truly economic basis. The designs embrace the double conception of reducing air resistance
 
 ton, together with construction whicE will give strength and freight carry ing capacity.
 "The best of these ideas, and the one which will probably be next in the rapid advance of the art of fly ing. is apparently a huge monoplane, without a strut or a stay wire or a fuselage or an undercarriage visible in flight. It is just a mammoth wing or wings, if you like, something in the nature of a bat with its head re- moved.
 Ut is to be built on the cantilever bridge principle. At the nose of the forward center of the plane, this bridge work will be five or six feet high. tapering each way to the ex- tremities of the wings. From the front to the lack or from the head to the tail the same cantilever-bridge construction is used. Toward the tall the machine narrows, or it may be cut out into a definite tail feature. like the present planes. The tail of the machine is equipped with the usual balanced rudder and elevators.
 "The engines and propellors are spaced equally apart from the nose of the machine. The radiators, in- stead of being vertical, are placed in a nearly horizontal position. so that they offer little resistance to the air, and the wind rushing over them sucks the air through them, instead of pushing 1t through as in an or dinary plane.
 The undercarriage, or landing wheels, make their appearance only when the machine is on the ground or about to land. Once in the air. they are promptly pulled up into the body of the machine, to reduce wind resistance. The whole of this struc- ture is covered with fabric or meta: sheets.
 "In flight we have a huge, headless pair of wings, with the front edge rounded in a graceful curve, stretch ing sidewise to almost feather-like edges on the endss and backward in a slightly bowed curve to the tail controls. As it purringly c1eaves the air there will not be a thing in sight except the burnished wings of this monster. The cantilever plane can be built water-tight, so that. except in extremely severe weather, it can float safely on the surface of the ocean indefinitely. if diversity forces a watery landing"