Word: catapults
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Only way that the Spee could have overcome the British tactic was to get her two planes in the air for reconnoitering. It must have been early in the battle that a lucky British hit stripped to her fuselage the plane perched on the catapult-blocking the catapult so the other plane was also useless, and thus virtually blinding Spee. Despatches by week's end had not made it clear whether the British used their five available planes...
...upper component of the British Short-Mayo Composite, the seaplane Mercury ("The piggyback plane"), arrived in Foynes, Eire, after an uneventful round trip to Canada and the U. S. And last week off City Island, N. Y., the Lufthansa Nordmeer, flicked like a bug from the deck of its catapult ship, the Friesenland, skittered across to the Azores just after its colleague, the Nordwind, had skittered from the Azores to Port Washington, Long Island. Howard Hughes and Douglas Corrigan having completed (TIME, July 25) their spectacular flights with a maximum of uproar, the commercial airlines of three nations were quietly...
...three years Lufthansa pilots have flown the North Atlantic as cool as cream: they made eight flights in 1936, 14 in 1937, and this year they will make 28, two a week, with the Nordmeer, Nordwind and Nordstern, all Hamburg Ha. 1395 with four Diesel engines, a catapult start, and a payload of only 880 Ib. Lufthansa would like to start flying mail any day now, but it has been allowed to use Pan American's sea base at Port Washington only if it waits till Pan American can match it flight for flight...
...agreed to cooperate in test flights across the Atlantic, share each other's bases at each end. The agreement gives Germany rights at Dakar, Senegal, for South Atlantic flights, and at Hanoi. French Indo-China, for Far Eastern flying. France won the right to use Germany's catapult ships in the Atlantic. Co-operation was necessary because France lacks planes, Germany lacks capital, and both lack rights to land in the Azores, Bermuda, Canada...
...With airplane size now reaching vast proportions, most airports are becoming obsolete. The NACA has been experimenting with catapults to solve this problem, found that the forthcoming Douglas DC-4 will need a thrust of 15,000 Ib. to take off in 1,150 ft. This requires an engine of 3,250 h.p., which is too expensive. Probable solution will be a large flywheel which can store up this much energy. The catapult would presumably rise from an emplacement in the centre of the field. Passengers might need headrests, but would not be internally distressed by the sudden start...