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Show UTAH AVIATOR BREAKS RECORD FOR AIR-SPEED Lieutenant Maughan Drives Machine at Terrific Speed of 248,5 Miles Per ' Hour in Army Test EXPERTS ASTONISHED AT ACCOMPLISHMENT Daring Airman Also Puzzles AH by Flying Plane Vir- tuallr Without Assistance -of Wings; New Feild Open MT. CLEMENS. Mich.. Oct. 17 (By A. r.) Aeronautical engineers and army and navy experts at Belfridg field war speculating today aa to what might be tha next unheard of aerial feat. They came here a week aro prepared for aurprtees. but none had expected to see a human be in a: plunge through apace at nearly 4Q feet a second, nor had they expected to aee an airplane flown virtually without tha aid of wlntra. Thla waa the performance yesterday yester-day of Lieutenant R. U Mauffhan of the army, who on Saturday won the Pulltaer aero classic Flylnr. a Cur-ttse.Army Cur-ttse.Army biplane, with which he waa victorious tUturday, Lieutenant Maurhan yesterday traveled one kilometer at the rste or 148. S miles an hour, surnasslns; by more than thirtv-two thirtv-two miles the previous official record and makfnr the- distance twenty-elaht twenty-elaht mllee an hour faster than any unrcosjnised mark previously recorded. re-corded. DECIDES TYPE. The record hreaklna flight was pari nf the government tests of a score nf new type planes built for the ns-tlonnl ns-tlonnl air rarea. Lieutenant Maughan'e feat, It waa aald, would virtually decide de-cide the type of plane the army will ls,act to nVvclnn hi the standard for the pursuit group. 1 The pilot 'a great speed wss even i en r pa seed, in the opinion of some of the engineers, by his "flight without wings." During the Tulltser race Lieutenant Maughan's pylon work startled many of the pilots on the field. At more than 200 r Ilea an hour he would tilt ht machine on one side for a considerable con-siderable distance, then complete the 120 degree turns upside down. This aroused speculation aa to the distance a machine might be flown on Ita side, a position In which the planes hsd little or nothing to do with keeping It In the air. Lieutenant Maughan believed this might be do veloped and demonstrated by a flight across Helfrldge field, a distance, of shout ft mile, that under certain conditions con-ditions a plane might be flown In that position for a much greater dls-tiince dls-tiince than usually la required In making turns. It appeared that the speed of the powerful motor was sufficient to pull the machine through the air and at the same time hold It aloft. The fet probably will have an Important bearding beard-ing on future wins designs, Jt was 'said. CAUSES SURPRISE. Ho surprised were the pilots and ! aero officials who w1tnesd Maughan's flights that "doubting Thomaaea" appeared, ap-peared, and even Krlgndler General William Mitchell, assistant head of the army air eervice, wanted to satisfy sat-isfy himself that the performance waa not aidd by some unobserved feature of denlgn. General Mitchell took tha speedy craft into the air and returned with the announcement that no "trick flvlng" had figured in the flighta, which were elerirlcally timed by army officers from McTook field. The plane, built by the Turtles corporation, mounts a 40-horse no wer Turtles engine, and la similar In de-sign de-sign to the machines that finished In the first four places In the Pulitier trophy rare. The .-erformanee convinced service observers, they declared, that development devel-opment of aircraft waa still far from Its peak and that there was virtually f no limit to the speed that might be attained. The government teta are to b continued for several daya. |