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Show REFUELING IN THE AIR " CUTS TIME AND LOAD i Operation Easy at Full Speed, Say Pilots. New York. The extent to which re- fueling in the air may be used In com-j merclal and military aviation Is oner of the problems in the minds of nero-y nautical engineers, writes George Gardner In the New York Herald Tribune. - This method was devised for the, army plane Question Mark, which es-' tabllshed an endurance record of 150 hours, 40 minutes and 15 seconds That record has-been surpassed several sev-eral times. The St, Louis Robin was, kept In the air 420 hours, 21 minutes and 30 seconds by supplying the ship1 with fuel and oil and food for the1 pilots from another plane. ' It was used also by the Spokane Sun God for a non-stop round trip of 7,200 miles, from Spokane to New York and return, and by the Boeing-Hornet-Shuttle In Its transcontinental mal test, which was sponsored by the arm and the Boeing company. ' The equipment is simple. The sup; ply plane needs only an extra gasoline tank and a hose. The plane which is to receive fuel usually has a receiving tank, but the hose could be connected to the main tank If necessary. 1 Refueling flights that have Interested Interest-ed the newspaper public since the Question Mark flight, however, have Veerl stunt flights for the endurance' record, or, in the most recent cases to .demonstrate the possibilities of long-distance flights. ( Ihe lessons to commercial flliig may be applied to increase speed o'r ! the distance that may be flown without with-out landing. . Cutt Time for Flight. c For commercial flying, only the first consideration Is important. If It is not necessary to make a flight in the shortest possible time, the plane might as well take on its fuel at an airport. But America demands speed. American Amer-ican business, particularly, demands that It3 correspondence be delivered with all possible haste, and that Its executives make business trips with no delay. If an airplane can save a half hour or an hour In a long trip by receiving an additional supply of gasoline from another plane in the air, this will be of value when such a saving Is an essential. es-sential. Pilots, who have participated In endurance en-durance tests are confident that refueling re-fueling In the air can be done without lessening the speed of the plane. Dale ("Red") Jackson, one of the pilots of the St. Louis Robin, said that an airplane which refueled In the air could make a long distance flight as rapidly ns a plane that flew with a large load of gasoline and did not stoy for fuel, and, furthermore, that It could fly farther if that was considered consid-ered desirable. "It Is not ueccssary to slacken speed at all," Jackson said. "The St. Louis Robin refueled while traveling 80 to 100 miles an hour. It would be Just, as easy to refuel at ISO or 200. ; "If the pilot of a transport, ,pjape; gets h's gasoline In the air.. wiiUd lie , Is in flight toward his destination lie, can go along without any 'delay at' all If he has to stop at an airport for gas, he stands a chance of being delayed de-layed from fifteen minutes to an hour. Saves Wear on Equipment. "Then, again, you must consider the wear on equipment. The deterioration deteriora-tion of an airplane, aside from' the motor, mo-tor, Is largely In landing and in taking off. If you eliminate this, you are practicing economy." MaJ. Clarence M. Young, now assistant as-sistant secretary of commerce for aeronautics, Is a champion of the refueling re-fueling process- "I should think the logical step Is to put it to use economically econom-ically by refueling planes carrying full cargo on non stop flights across the continent," he said recently. "Instead of taking, on n heavy load of gasoline at tlie start," he continued, "a plane could take part of Its gasoline, gaso-line, be refueled several times: en route und save much weight for pay load. For Instance, 400 gallons of gasoline, weighing about 2,400 pounds, might be required for a transcontinental transconti-nental trip. Why not take GOO pounds, refuel In the air as necessary and carry 1,800 pounds more cargo?" |