Aircraft Types
Rutland Reindeer : Built by the Rutland Aircraft Company, in service with C.A.T.O, the Commercial Air Transport Organisation, then plying the Atlantic on a regular basis. Powered by eight engines with four contra-rotating propellors, the Reindeer can best be imagined to resemble the Bristol Brabazon, whose future development would also have included jet power; Shute notes this late in the novel.
Assegai Mk.1 powered by a Boreus afterburning turbojet. At the end of the novel this aircraft is under investigation by Dr. Scott because three have been lost through trans-sonic disintegration. Interestingly this parallels the late development of the Gloster Meteor, whose late marks had more thrust than the airframe was designed to accommodate; it too suffered from trans-sonic buffeting in powered dives, two being lost to tail separation. From the name of the Assegai, it can be assumed that the aircraft is of delta configuration, and it can be assumed that it is a re-labeling of Fairey FD-2 supersonic prototype powered by the Bristol Orpheus turbojet.
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Famous quotes containing the word types:
“If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)