The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-15


 American airmen that guns should be mounted in the wings and the planes protected with armor plate; but the American design CTS said this would dangerously weaken the plane.
 As a result, the U. s. fighter planes delivered to the British had to be reconditioned--prac- tically rebuilt-before they could be taken into the air against German MeSscrschmitts. This caused months of delay.
 U. s. Air Corps officials are frank in admitting that they have had to revise their planes com- pletely as & result of British ex- perience. For instance, the P-40, supposed to be the fastest pur- suit ship ever turned out for the U. s. Army, got into production in 1889, with 200 ships built, when suddenly the Army had to stop production and revise the de- sign.
 On the other hand, the Air Corps officials say that the Bri- tish and French did not tell them about their self-sealing gasoline tanks, armored planes and ma chine guns In the wings. Whether this is true or not. 1t is obvious that neither the U. s. Army or Navy paid much attention to re- search and experimentation re- garding these vitatl things. NEED LIQUID
 COOLED MOTORS
 Where the British and U. s. airmen absolutely agree, however, is on the performance of the AL lison motor, liquid-cooled product of General Motors at its Tndian- apolis plant. Singled out as the pet of the Air Corps, the Allison motor has been installed in the Bell P-39. the Curtiss P-40, and the Lockheel P-38, all fighter models expected to attain a speed of at least 385 miles an hour.
 The Bell, however, can produce & speed of only 360 miles an hour and If pushed further, the bear ings go bad.
 In the summer of 1888, Major Alexander dc Seversky, famed airplane designer laid before General Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Corps a design for new pursuit plane.
 "What have you got on the nose" asked General Arnold, re- ferring to the nose of the plane, or engine.
 "A 2,O00 horse power Pratt Whitney," replied de Seversky.
 "These air. cooled motors won't make any speed" said Arnold.
 "T figure this will make 43O miles an hour," replied the de- signer.
 "Oh, mo-" said Arnold, i've are not building anything around an air-cooled engine. If you will design this around 8 liquid- cooled engine and bring 1t back, maybe we can talk business.
 But now, nearly three years la ter, the Air Corps, after dis appointments with the Allison motor, has placed a large order with the Republic company for air-cooled motors of substantially the same design as proposed by de Seversky and flatly rejected. SPEED SAVED BRITAIN
 American interest in the liquid- cooled motor developed from Bri- tish and German success with this type of engine, which not only attains terrific speed, but also high attitudes. Moreover, its elongated shape improves stream- lining.
 At present, Pratt and Whitney has trebled its capacity to produce an excellent 1850-horsepower air. cooled motor. and is going to treble its capacity once again. However, air-cooled motors have difficulty at high attitudes, where the air becomes too rarified-- though this is corrected to some extent with super-chargers.
 Meanwhile the Germans are re- ported to have a bomber which will fly 10000 feet higher than our present pursuit planes, leaving them behind.
 Ford is putting out a new liquid cooled motor which has no car- buretor and can climb to tremen- dous attitudes, but it has only 1,400 horsepower, 60 that Ger.