The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-05
ALLIED PLANES
 GET READY FOR
 STRATOSPHERE
By HARRY CARLSON


 United Press Stan Correspondent
 Los Angeles, June 5-(Up)-Tech. nicians in Eskimo suits are working in temperatures colder than Little America SO United Nations planes can fly higher than any in tho world and in weather colder thar that in Russia last winter.
 Because the trend in war avia- ton is to the sub-Arctic ten@ era. lures of high altitude flying, ghess aircraft technicians are workint daily in laboratories at extremely low temperatures, correcting func. tional defects and experimenting on new devices that will enable our planes to perform as efficiently in the near-stratosphere as they do in the close combat fighting of . few thousand feet above the earth.
 Douglas Aircraft Company, pion eering In cold-room experimenta. tion, shares all the scientific infor- mstton assembled by its engineers with other manufacturers in this region through the Aircraft War Production Council recently organ ized by California manufacturers for closer cooperation in the inter- ests of war production.
 Sees Hitler Mistake
 According to T. N. Floyd, altitude engineer and designer of the Doug- las cold-room laboratories, Ger- many's failure against Russia in the air can be laid directly to the fact that Hitler's sky hordes could not withstand the sub-Arctic temper atures of the winter campaign.
 without detracting from the magnificent stand and courage of the Russian army" Floyd said, it is the considered opinion of many experts htat if Hitler had only done Q little experimentation on Stratosphere flying, he might never have suffered such reverseS.
 "He would have discovered that cold could immobilize war birds built of metal as readily as 1t does armies of men.
 Hitler obviously planned to util-' ize the winter months of ground irl- activity in bombarding and strafing the Russians into complete ruin and demoralization," Floyd pointed out, but to his bitter surprise he learned that the high precision quality of his planes doomed them."
 Pioneers in Sub-ZerO
 Floyd related how the American arplane industry took advantage oi the lesson learned from Hitler's winter experiences, became low- temperature conscious and started a general rush to build their planes to stratosphere specifications.
 Nven before the lessons of Rus. sia, Floyd said. Douglas engineers had discovered and largely over come the effects of sub-zero cold on hydraulic lines. rubber connec. tions and functional parts reQuir. ing fabrication And, before our en- try into the war, many more diffi- vulties had been overcome.
 The serious hazard of choked up oil systems due to thickening of lubricants was eliminated. Carnou-| fiage paint was treated so that it| could withstand the effects to fuses lage shrinkage. Most cold-room de-l velopments dealt essentially with correcting control trouble resulting from differences in the expansion co-efflcients of the various com- binaticns of metals, alloys and plas- ties.
 Tests Speed Progress
 Floyd declared that sufficientI progress already has been made inl stratosphere experiments to permitl our planes to withstand what thel German planes could not, but adj mitted that there is still much tol be done. The increasing necessity of meeting extreme cold will hasten our prgoress in stratosphere flying he said.
 T dare predict that by the end of the war most of the problems in stratosphere flying. which emanate from the leement of cold will have been overcome" Floyd said.