The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-12-31

asleep on the Job, that 1t is doing the research necessary to win the war, Under-secretar of War Rob- ert P. Patterson has made 1t pos. sible for . small group of newspa. permen to so through Wright Fields $i5o,oo0, 900 plant and report some of the things that have been and are being developed for the use of American pilots and ground forces,
 KEEP YEARS AHEAD
 Tt Is our joh," says Brig. Gen. A. w. Vanaman. commanding the material center ct Wright Field, ito outgueSs the service and 90 beyond into the blue So aS to be four CT i've years ahead of the needs of the service, Here at Wright Field, we were thinking about planes that would go 400 and 500 miles an hour, four or five years ago, Today we have plans for planes that will fly backward. They sound impossible"
 Yet after only two hours instead of the necessary two weeks spent at Wright Field, planes that fly backward don't sound at all impos- sible, Hitting the high spots. here are just few of the developments to be seen at Wright Field today, worked out in the research lab- oratories here and in cooperation with the American aircraft indus try.
 There is the new Allison v-i7i0 stage engine, built by General Mo- tors. A little over year ago that engine was rated at less than 1000 horsepower. Today 1t has been stepped up--first to 1925 horsepow- CT. On Wright Field test block, one of those engines has been run continuously for many hours. de- veloping this new top horsepower throughout the test. This Is the engine now going to the P-S9. the deadly Aircobra, driving 1t faster and higher.
 MAKE BETTER GAS TANK
 The way In which Wright Field has to work in keeping ahead of the services is perhaps best illus. trated by the story of the develop nient of the self sealing. or bullet proof gas tank. The Germans had this improvement first. Yet after tho Battle of Britain it became ap- parent that this was Q necessity Tn January, 1880. three ofiicers at Wright Field were assigned to this development. Less than six months later self-sealing tank was in full prodouetion in the United States, and it was . better job than the Germans. It had to be--for U. s. planes used high octane and aro- matic gases. which are harder to seal because they are more volatile.
 A gas tank development which Wright Field pioneered ahead of the Germans is new auxiliary belly gas tank.
 Pursuit planes are normally for shorter range operation. When they are sent on longer missions. they must have auxiliary fuel. At first this extra gas was supplied from a metal tank fastened under the wing and jettisoned when it was emptied. To save metal and to save shipping space. a torpedo-shaped plastic tank was designed vastly to increase the range of fighter planes without using critical materials. A device to enable the pilots of dive bombers to fly their planes at top speeds while in a reclining po- sitlon is one of the newer research projects being studied at Wright Field. Tn a normal sitting position. the dive bomber pilot can take the terrific rate of acceleratlon for only a few seconds before he "blacks e,lt" or loses consciousness. Avla- ton engineers measure this ac- :eleration in units of gain in gravity speed which they call @G's''. Their measurements show that the normal pilot can take pun of only five or six G's for three or four seconds. Yet if the pilot were SUD- ported in a reclining position he could stand q pull Of more than twice as many ds for much longer periods.
 Consequently. one of the peculiar seats being experimented with at wright Field Is In the form Of Q cushioned couch on which the pilot rests. stomach and face down. his