Composite Airplane

Last barrier to commercial aviation is that vast body of salt water which the ancient Greeks called Ocean. To conquer it has long been the goal of many nations. First step was taken by Germany in the South Atlantic with her Graf Zeppelin and mail planes refueled by a ship anchored in midocean. Next summer Germany will launch a North Atlantic shuttle for mail & passengers with tne Graf's big sister, Hindenburg (LZ-129), and Pan American Airways will send its giant super-clipper ships experimentally across the Pacific. But by last week it became evident that the first to launch a North Atlantic mail service with heavier-than-air craft will most likely be Great Britain's Imperial Airways.

To do this Imperial Airways is relying on an ingenious device invented by its technical adviser, Major R. H. Mayo, Order of the British Empire, Associate Member of the Institute of Chemists, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Major Mayo's invention, now building at Short Brothers' Rochester (England) plant, is known as the Composite Aircraft. Simple in theory, it consists of a small, fast mail plane with high wind loading, mounted rigidly atop a huge flying boat. Unable to leave the ground by itself fully loaded, the sleek little mail plane will perch atop the "mother ship" for the takeoff. With eight engines (four apiece) wide open, the Composite Aircraft will be able to rise easily as a single unit. Securely locked together, the two planes will climb to some 5,000 ft. There, when sufficient speed is attained, they will separate. The mail plane, now able to stay aloft by itself, will get under way across the Atlantic. The "mother ship," its work done, will return to its base. At the end of its journey the mail plane, most of its fuel consumed, will be able to land safely on its pontoons.

Squarely behind the Mayo Composite Aircraft is the British Air Ministry, which believes it will not only revolutionize long-range ocean flying but may well be of incalculable military value.

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