On the bottom is Maia, with Mercury above. These planes were made by Short Brothers, and were aimed at solving the problem of getting heavily loaded aircraft into the air with a reasonably short take-off run.
On 20 July 1938, the Irish Independent reported:
"The Mercury will carry across the Atlantic copies of tomorrow's "Irish Independent", which, if the flight proceeds as scheduled, will be on sale in New York at mid-day on Thursday. She will also carry half a ton of newspapers and pictures of the King's visit to Paris. ... The Mercury will be catapulated [sic] from the back of the mother plane, Maia, and it is hoped to make the crossing in about 12 hours [to Montreal] and to be in New York in under 20 hours."
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