AERONAUTICS: 255 Miles Per Hour

• Share

During the week Lieutenant L. H. Sanderson, of the Marine Corps, flying the Navy-Wright Pulitzer racer, traveled at 238 miles an hour over Mitchel Field, L. I. Later Lieutenant H. J. Brow of the Navy went one better in the Navy-Curtiss racer, attaining the world's record speed of 244 miles an hour. Finally Lieutenant Alford J. Williams (Navy) went 255 miles per hour in another Navy-Curtiss.

The Curtiss ship is a tiny plane, streamlined to the last degree, with an engine which weighs less than 700 pounds, yet turns up 475 horsepower. The racer represents the last word in airplane design and embodies a wonderful wing, curved on the under as well as on the upper side, so as to offer the very least possible resistance to speed.

The Army Air Service, the other great contestant in the Pulitzer Trophy race at St. Louis next month, is not dicouraged. It has up its sleeve the Verville-Sperry monoplane. In this two engines are used, one behind the other, so that there is an enormous increase in power; but the area of the airplane body is no bigger than in the single-engined machines and the air resistance is therefore no greater.