For a generation Englishmen have played with the idea of mounting one airplane on the back of another on the theory that if they could be separated in midair it would "solve the fundamental problem of launching long-range aeroplanes with a full load . . . eliminate the take-off altogether." In 1916, an air force lieutenant named Day crudely accomplished this by lifting a Bullet scout plane from the wing of a Porte flying boat. Since then blue-eyed, middle-aged Major Robert Hobart Mayo, Cambridge graduate, airplane designer, and technical adviser to Imperial Airways,...
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