Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-02

beginning W UlSdk 1lIO
" the neutrality-suspicious. class
A there seems to be a tend
ency on the part Of many who
read of their exploits to expect
the impossible of military planes.
eff civilian planes can fly 200
miles an hour, why can't our mill
tary planes do as well?" is a
question you probably have heard
asked. IF speed is essential in
fighting planes, then why doesn't
the Army or the Navy take these
fast commercial planes and use
them?"
The people who ask such ques-
tionS might just as logically ex--
pect a Cavalry mount, equipped
for the field, to keep pace with a
race horse carrying only a half
starved jockey Load your race
horse down with the equipment
a Cavalry horse must carry and
see whether he can make the
same time he did before.
Try a military load on the fleet
civilian plane and see what hap
pens. Add machine guns, am
munition, bomb racks and bombs,
engine supercharger, oxygen
equipment for the pilot, extra
fuel tanks for long-range opera
lions, tools and spares for main.
tenance in the field and other
special equipment the hghtlng
plane must carry and your speedy
plane won't begin to look nearly
so well.
Then consider that, in addition
to carrying this military load, the
plane must climb far higher than
any CT the civilian speed planes
can hope to go and must stand
the tremendous strains imposed
by the acrobaticS upon which a
military pilot must depend for
safety and you begin to realize
that, after all, the plane built for
speed alone won't do and that
you must have something else.
Civil Types Faster.
There are several types Of civil
aircraft which can run away from
standard Army and Navy pursuit
and fighting planes. Capt. Frank
Hawks can do it with ease in his
Travelair Mystery S. Col. Charles
A. Lindbergh can do it with his
Lockheed Sirius. But Hawks and
Lindbergh do not carry military
loads nor do they have to operate
at excessive attitudes. Army pur-
suit planes now are operating
around the six mile altitude level.
If you can't go where the enemy
Is you certainly can't give him
much of a battle. If the enemy
can fly at 10000 feet, as our pur-
suit planes now are doing regular
ly with full military load, how are
you going to stop him with a
plane which can climb to only
10000 feet, even if it is 20 or 30
miles per hour faster? And 10000
feet is higher than most COM
mercial planes can go, even with
out any kind of load.
The builder of the high-Speed
commercial plane can sacrifice
many things to attain speed. He
can sacrifice altitude, fer the
normal commercial plane need
never fly very high, especially if
it is fast enough to cut down the
effect of adverse winds. He need
not build for the violent aero
battles which mean life to the
military pilot and, because he
need not build for strains enor-
mously above the normal, can
save structural weight. He need
worry less about visibility and can
avoid such outside protuberances
as machine guns and bomb racks,
so can Streamline his ship better
and obtain added speed in that
way. Not requiring such wide
visibility as the combat pilot must
have, the builder of the CONNER
cial speed plane can completely
cowl his engine for high speed.
Full cowling around radial en-
CINE cuts off too much of the
fighting pilots view and SO a
narrow ring cowling, at best, can
be used.
Must Sacrifice Speed.
Where the commercial designer
can make sacrifices to speed, the
designer of the military plane
may not do so to any very great
extent. The fighting plane must
be able to climb to great attitudes,
the higher the better. For alti-
tude flying greater wing area
must be provided and this re-
duceS speed. Engines must be
supercharged and pilots must
have oxygen to breathe. Military
loads must be carried. The plane
must be highly maneuverable and