London, Feb. 16.
Scerets of the performance of the world's fastest war plane, a super-marine Spitfire eight-gun single-seater fighter, were revealed today by permission of the Air Ministry:
The Spitfire's speed is 362 miles an hour and, fully loaded, can climb from sea-level to 11,000 fect in 4.8 minutes. These figures relate only to carlier Spitfires, fitted with two-bladed fixed-pitch air-screws, The speed will be still greater in later models with three-bladed controllable pitch air-screws.
Besides large contracts with Vickers, Ltd, the Air Ministry has placed an initial order for a thousand Spitfires with Lord Nuffield, the motor magnate—Reuter. defence loans might be used expenditure on civil "defence and the purchase of food and other essential commodities.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.