The Bismarck Tribune

Speed Range in the Air
(New York Times)

Patient effort, great mechanical skill and courage of the highest order were rewarded when the Italian air force, in the person of Francesco Agello, wrested the world's record for speed in the air from Great Britain by sending a Macchi seaplane over the measured three-kilometer course at Lake Garda six times for an average speed of 423.7 miles an hour. Flight Lieutenant Stainforth's previous record was 406.997 miles. The plane in which the Italian pilot flashed to a new mark was, of course, highly specialized. Its two Fiat engines, developing 2,500 horsepower, contributed most of the total weight of three tons. Its wing surface was only 161 square feet and its minimum landing speed 130 miles an hour—a terrific rate at which to make contact with either water or land.

Improvement in design, especially in engines and streamlining, has been held to justify the high cost in men and money involved in establishing new air speed records. Of more obvious value to aviation as a whole and to commercial flight with passengers in particular, however, is the combination of high top speed with slow landing speed which marks some of the newest American types. The plane which Lieut. Commander Frank Hawks is flying, for example, has a top speed, with load, of 250 miles an hour. But it is equipped with split flaps at the trailing edge of the wing which can be lowered to act as brakes in the air. Coming to a landing, it slows like a shot bird when these flaps are lowered and seems almost to float to the ground, touching at from 42 to 50 miles an hour. Agello's seaplane has a speed range of about 3.25 to 1, Commander Hawks's 5 to 1.

The newer transport planes, the Northrops, Boeings and Condors, attacking the problem from various angles, show speed ranges of well above 4 to 1. This is an outstanding advance in modern plane design and a long step on the road to safety.