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Show FLYING WING TESTS ARE SATISFACTORY Northrop Model Flies at Rate of 100 Miles. Burbank, Calif. Test flights, conducted con-ducted In secret over a period of several sev-eral months, have at last proved t lie feasibility of the "living wing" Idea for heavler-than-air machines, a uul-versal uul-versal objective of aircraft designing. It was learned here recently. The principle of the flying wing design, de-sign, lung recognized as a need In aviation, is to Inclose as many of the factors of flight as possible, pilot, crew, power plant and fuel and all of the pay load passengers, mail or express ex-press In the wing formation, so that only the lljlng and control surfaces are exposed to the air. The earliest recorded conceptions of this Idea go Luck more than twenty years. Craft Tested Sscrctly. The design for which success is now claimed Is the work of John K. Northrop. North-rop. The secret tests with the "tiying wing'1 were made at the United airport air-port here and at Dry Lake in the liojave Desert. In the tests the all-wing all-wing plane attained speeds In excess of 100 miles an hour with a CO horsepower horse-power engine. Ihe plane With whlchuhls remarkable remark-able feat has been achieved is simply a working model. As a result of these experiments, Northrop engineers predict pre-dict passenger transports cruising at ICO miles an hour and mall and express ex-press planes with speeds in excess of i'(KJ miles an hour. The "Hying wing" for sucli practical work is uot yet perfected, per-fected, but the success which lias come In flying the new type is regarded regard-ed as .of the utmost Importance in eventual achievement of the desired goal. Plane Without Fuselage. The plane flown here has a wing span of 30 feet. The craft is of the pusher type and the propeller works In an outrigger frame, which carries the tall surfaces. The propeller shaft protrudes only a short distance behind be-hind the trailing edge of the ship. The motor and the pilot's cockpit have both " been skillfully tailored into the wing formation. The Northrop "tiying wing," projected pro-jected commercially as a development of the model already tiown. would differ from the conventional type In this Important feature: It would have no fuselage, and Its retractable landing land-ing gear, consisting of three wheels, . would be under the wing in triangular arrangement. The front wheels are placed considerably further forward than Is normally possible, reducing possibilities of a nose-over. The rear wheel is made stceruble, providing maneuverability on the ground. |