The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1944-06-20
BY PETER EDISON
MonitOr-Leader Washington
COrreSnOude nj


any of the standard Navy car
rier-based type of aircraft. Its
only difference from the ordin.
airy is that on the fuselage il
carries rockets. When the pilot
wants this extra lift, as in taking
off from the deck of a carrier,
he merely operates control
that opens the apertures at the
bottoms OF the cylinders. Jets
of white exhaust hiss out and
down, at the same time the
pilot advances the throttle 10
speed up the planes engine and
propeller. Before the plane has
rolled more than a few hundred
feet it is in the air.
Advantages of this type of
assisted takeoff for carrier
based planes with heavy loads
of gas and ammunition for long
flights are obvious. There is d
further advantage in extra
bursts of speed in combat.
Naval aviation, not having
the vast number of planes and
men that the Army Air Forces
can muster. has not had the
publicity plugs Of its companion
service. The Navy has few air
stations inland. and its carriers
are usually far from home. But
naval aviation has a number of
tricks stuffed in its Windsocks.
Many cannot yet be revealed in
full, but enough can be told 10
indicate that naval aviation IS
making sensational scientific ad-
vances.
THE FACTORIES ARE
NAVY'S LABORATORIES
Centers of naval aviation re-
search are the factories of the
plants building naval aircraft,
the Naval Research Laboratory
at Philadelphia, and the impress
sive new Naval Air Station at
Patuxent, Md, where tests Of
new equipment are conducted
There is new tWin-engine
carrier based fighter which is
expected to write naval combat
history, 1t will be flown from
the new 45,000-ton aircraft car
riers now under construction.
This new plane is in reality a
single-place dive bomber as well
as a fighter. Its armament in
machine guns and cannon is ex-
tremely heavy. Yet its wings
fold in the already perfected
carrier based style.
There is new scouting plane
for use on battleships and cruls-
ers which the Navy believes will
revolutionize observation work
and bring it far in advance Of
the Japanese scouting from
small fast planes, in which they
have previously had the edge.
There is new version of the
Douglass Dauntless dive bomb
er-the sixth modification OF
this carrier based plane-step-
ping up its horsepower, speed
and bomb-carrying capacity.
All these new planes and
notifications of previous mod
els are a manifestation of the
steady advance Of flying. What
really makes an appeal to the
imagination is the dream stuff
still in the laboratories and
testing fields.
For example, there is new
amphibious glider under devel-
opment which suggests intrigu.
ing new tactics in long-range
sea and airborne invasion com.
mando operations.
There are new armors-light
yet capable of protecting piloi
and delicate instruments from
bomb augmentation.
DOUBLING PLANES
FIREPOWER
Another potent new weapon
to increase the firepower of air.
craft is the Douglas package
gun" Shaped like a tear-dror
bomb and hung under each wing
of plane just like a bomb
this package contains two
machine guns and ammunition
A pair Of these packages con
tanning four machine guns vii
double the firepower of any
plane mounting four fixed posi-
ton machine guns. In an emer'
gency, the package can be jetti'
soned by the usual bomb rack
release. TO tighten the plane
load by 600 pounds.
In time the 20 nm. cannon
may see itself replaced by some
thing of larger bore. On test is q
new 81 nm. cannon for fixed
mount that has interesting posi-
bilities. 1t is only half the size
of the IS nm. gun mounted .r
Army's Bass. but whereas the
rs" is hand operated, the 81