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Aviation History
1935
1935 - 0470.PDF
230 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY 28, i935 and just below, the pilot's compartment and is well pro vided with Pyralin windows. There are two gunner's posi tions behind the wings. The cabin is 13ft. long and 6ft. high, and is adaptable to several purposes. Six stretchers may be installed or pro vision may be made for carrying eighteen soldiers, cargo, spare engines, or bombs. Behind the cabin is a 180-gallon abdominal tank, which, in combination with a removable 200-gallon tank strapped to the cabin floor, and the 300 gallons normally carried in tanks in the upper stub wings and engine nacelles, gives a 1,500-mile range in " maximum overload " condition. The design and arrangement of the tail surfaces, which are of wood or welded steel tubular construction, is such as to provide easy operation on a single engine without manoeuvring the machine into awkward positions to main tain flight. Two direct-drive supercharged Wright " Cyclone F-3 " nine-cylinder radials giving 710 h.p. at 7,000 feet are installed in N.A.C.A. cowlings and are attached to rubber- bushed chrome molybdenum mountings on the top wings. Exceptional aerodynamic efficiency is a feature of the seaplane version, for the floats, which are of all-metal riveted aluminium alloy construction with retractile w t rudders and beaching gear attachments, are simply a !| neatly attached to the same points as are the wheels of th landplane. Even as a seaplane the machine will fly on e engine with full load, maintaining a height of 8,000 kJ BELLANCA BOMBER LANDPLANE Two WRIGHT " CYCLONE F-3 " (710 H.P. AT 7.000 FT.) DIMENSIONS. Span 70ft. (23,16 m) Length 40ft. (12,79 m) Height ... ... 14ft. (4,26 m) Weight empty Normal weight loaded Maximum weight loaded WEIGHTS. PERFORMANCE. Maximum speed at 7,000ft. . Cruising speed (75 per cent, full power) Stalling speed (with flaps) Climb to 6,560 ft. (2,000 m) Climb to 16,400ft. (6.000 m) Absolute ceiling Normal range Maximum range 8,2161b. (3 726 kg) 14,1861b. (6 411kg) 16,3331b. (7 407 kg) 100 m.p.h. 172 m.p.h. 58 m.p.h. (93,3 kmfkt) 5.5 min. 17.7 min. 25,000ft. (7 620 m) 710 miles (1143 km) 1 500 miles (2 414 im) FOR "PURSUIT" WORK The Consolidated P-30 Monoplane, adopted by the U.S. Army Air Corps WITHOUT taking sides in any monoplane v. biplane argument, the very least one can do in writing of America's widespread adoption of monoplanes for fighting purposes is to regret that Professor Aldous Huxley has already thought of the title '' Brave New World." It was a bold step to adopt a single-seater fighter of the pattern of the Boeing P-26A and to issue it as a standard service type. Not that there are any doubts regarding the qualities of that aeroplane, but the change was a radical one. The hundred odd P-26A's acquired have been in everyday service for several months past, and, as far as we know, the U.S Army Air Corps has not regretted its action. Its hand was forced, of course. It was the well- known story of new and cleverly designed bombers '' walk ing" away from fighters, and so the handy little biplanes had to make way for the superior speed given by monoplanes like the P-26A. That was a year or two ago. Now comes news that the Consolidated P-30 cantilever monoplane has been adopted as the standard two-seater " pursuit" type. What engine will be used is not definitely known. The Consolidated machine has been developed from the P-25, and was illustrated in Flight of December 20, 1934. Four P-30's have for some time been under service tests in the hands of American service pilots. No particulars of construction or performance have been divulged from official quarters, but it appears that the machine is entirely of metal with stressed-skin-covered monocoque fuselage and cantilever wing. The tail surfaces are of full cantilever construction. In the prototype a Curtiss " Conqueror " twelve-cylinder vee-type liquid- cooled engine is fitted, with an exhaust-drive supercharger mounted on its port side; it drives a three-bladed metal airscrew. The jadiator is of the abdominal type. A very neat system of cockpit protection is incorporated, the roof of the pilot's compartment, which is situated above the wing, being arranged to slide, permitting exit by parachute. Two Browning guns are mounted in the cowling. In the rear gunner's cockpit, close behind that of the pilot, is a third Browning gun on a track-type mount ing. This gun, when not in use, lies in a trough in the fuselage decking. The two halves of the retractile under carriage fold upwards into the wing. Similar in basic design to the P-30, the A-11 " attack" machine, under test at the moment, has an unsupercharg "Conqueror" engine giving the high performance a altitudes required by an "attack" machine, and spe armament and equipment. Two-row Engines Favoured in U.^-A- n& It is probable that the new Northrop attack ^m°f ordered by the U.S. Army Air Corps will be fitted two-row Pratt and Whitney radials of 700 or »°0^* New Vought scouting biplanes ordered by the U-3- * ^ will have 700 h.p. "Twin Wasp Juniors," with P cowlings allowing for "controlled cooling."
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