Cyclops

"I christen thee Cyclops!"

Crash. Fizz. Splash-sh-sh.

Miss Eleanor Godley of Trenton, N. J., stepped back, dripping but smiling, and surveyed her handiwork. She had splintered a bunting-wrapped bottle of ginger-ale upon the nose of a monster all-metal bombing biplane at the Bristol, Pa., factory of the Huff-Daland Airplanes Inc. Bigger, stronger, all-metal, it was one of many new types of bombing planes that are abuilding in various shops for the Army Air Service, in competition to succeed the Martin bomber as official type for the national bombing fleet, which numbers at present, in Panama, Hawaii, the Philippines, etc., about 100. The Cyclops is a monster many times as formidable, many times as agile as its fabled namesake.* Standing more than 20 ft. high, with 85 ft. of wingspread and a 13-ft "gap" (between her two wings) she will be driven by her single Packard motor (an 825-h.p. V-type) at 110 m.p.h. Her propeller is enormous--a 15 1/2-ft. traction blade, of such thrust that it is geared to one half the motor's speed turning only 1,100 revolutions per minute. (Smaller propellers must make 1,400 to 2,400 r.p.m.) Engineering skill has arranged that 50% of the Cyclops' final flying weight, 16,600 Ibs., shall be "useful load", i.e. 4,000 lbs. of bombs; 2,500 lbs. of fuel, enough for 500 mi.; 1,000 Ibs. of personnel; 500 lbs. of munitions for machine guns. Without bombs and cartridges, 5,000 Ibs. of fuel could be carried and the Cyclops flown to Europe. Five machine guns are carried: one out on each lower wing, clear of the propeller and thus not necessarily synchronized with it, to be operated from the cockpit, aiming straight ahead; one in a disappearing turret which drops down from the fuselage aft of the pilot, for defense below; two firing as one in another turret rising above the fuselage still further aft, for defense upwards.

* "That talkative, bald-headed seaman," wily Ulysses, is supposed to have done battle in Sicily with Polyphemus, member of the gigantic tribe of Cyclopes, who had but one eye, in the centre of their foreheads, and were believed by the Greeks to forge iron for Vulcan. The historical originals of this tribe were probably Pelasgians, who worked in underground quarries, wearing lanterns or flares on their beads.