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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0396.PDF
extraordinary evolutions is suitable for the work." There should be no question as to its strength. The bracing of the wings, especially it be a monoplane, should be such that it will stand as big a strain on the top side as on the underside of the wings. The range of control should be greater than is necessary for ordinary flying, so that the machine will have no hesitation in responding to the sudden calls on the control. The machine must be 50 balanced that it will assume a nose dive if the controls are abandoned at any considerable height. The whole secret of the safety of this freak flying lies in the fact of allowing sufficient altitude in which to recover from any precarious position the machine may assume. I have found out that there is no position that the machine can be put into from which it cannot easily be brought back to the normal again, provided, as I say, that there is sufficient altitude allowed in which to effect the recovery. This one point alone, when clearly grasped, adds enormously to that most valuable of qualities which a pilot can possess, confidence. There is nothing extraordinary required in the piloting of the machine. I find it does practically everything you set it to do in the way of tumbling about in the air. One golden rule which I had thoroughly drilled into me by M. Louis Bl^riot, when practicing for the looping at Buc, was to use the controls " doucement," i.e., gently, as one can easily see that a sudden jerk on, say, the elevator, would throw an enormous strain on the fuselage, whereas if that movement were made " doucement," the strain would be negligible. Much the same thing applies to the driving of a motor car—one driver can steer a car fast round a corner by handling his steering with a sensi tive touch, whilst another with harsh hands will cause the car to skid, at exactly the same speed, which shows how a much greater strain is thrown on the machine merely by the touch on the control. The machine on which I have at present made several hundred loops has afar wider range of control than a standard machine. The wing warping is nearly four times as effective, and the tail elevator is considerably larger. The result is that the machine readily answers to the control. For instance, when doing a perpendicular nose dive, the machine responds immediately to the elevator and flattens out without the slightest hesitation, a point of the greatest importance. ~"e: same thing happens with the warping. The machine can be banked up so that the wings are perpendicular, by simply turning rather sharply, and warping at the same time. The machine is fairly easily got into the inverted position, but it is very noticeable how unstable it is when in that position. It requires extreme care in balancing it, as it were, because the moment it is allowed to get only slightly out of the level, it will side-slip and turn the right way up. This, after all, is only what would be expected, as it shows its natural stability, and its tendency always to assume its normal position. The machine canr.ot be made to climb when inverted, although the engine may be turning full speed. There is, in fact, very little support in the wings when the wrong way up. If one tries to keep even the same level, with engine full on, the machine will stall, and side-slip round to its normal position again. The only way I find my machine can be kept in an inverted position for any period (my longest timed inverted flight so far is 2 minutes 5 seconds, and even that seems quite a long time to be hanging head downwards) is by allowing it to plane downwards the whole time. The control when hanging head downwards is not so confusing as might be expected, because the pilot stilt bears the same relative position to his machine. Needless to say, one has to be very securely strapped in for these evolutions, as otherwise one would certainly fall out. I find it a great advantage to be strapped very solidly and tightly to the seat. I have straps round the waist, thighs, and shoulders. It is true I feel much as if I were in a straight-jacket, but I consider that far better than if the straps were at all slack. When you are tightly strapped in, you feel absolutely solid with the machine, and a sudden bump or jerk does not dislodge you in the slightest. Most of you who are present have no doubt travelled some time or other in the back seat of a fairly last car, and you must know how unpleasant it is when that car pes over a small bridge, or culvert, on a country road, and you leave the seat and shoot up about a foot. Well, there are times when an aeroplane treats one much in the same way, and you will then see the advantage of being really tightly and rigidly strapped to your machine. Of course, there is a serious disadvantage to being strapped in rigidly to the machine, and that is the difficulty of getting out quickly in the event of even a minor mishap. What is wanted is some certain quick-release device, which cannot by any chance come undone until required. I consider that then strapping in, and rigidly strapping in, would be adopted generally. I now come to the question of the value of this freak flving. Ihere is not the slightest doubt that every pilot who has looped the loop, or flown upside down, has benefited considerably by so doing. His confidence has increased enormously, and even those pilots who have only seen others do it must benefit. Surely it is nice to know that a machine can be wantonly turned over and righted again. I can remember, not so very long ago, before the looping era, that a very bad gust of wind struck my machine, which sent the planes up vertically. I thought something very serious was going to happen, but the machine recovered somewhat quicker than I did myself. There is no doubt that the same thing occurring to-day would not be nearly so disconcerting, because one knows that it is possible to recover (if there is altitude enough) from any conceivable position the machine may be thrown into. Then again, it will bring about a general strengthening of machines, because a machine which has successfully looped a number of times has surely proved itself strong enough to withstand the strains of ordinary flying. It is true that one does not fly the wrong way up, because there is any advantage in so doing. The critics have said that most men are quite satisfied in being able to fly the right way up. But the same thing applies to most things. One might as justly say " What purpose is served by driving a motor car at the rate of two miles a minute on Brooklands track? most men are content if they can drive their cars at half that speed." But, in each case, they are extreme tests, which record the progress of science. Mr. Gordon Bell, in the course of an extemporaneous address, which was freely interspersed with criticisms, remarked that his earliest experiences were obtained in 1910 on the Roe triplane, and were succeeded by others on the Hanriot and the R.E.P. On one occasion while flying the last mentioned machine, he found that the back wire of one of the wings had broken. As may be expected, he was extremely anxious to regain terra firma, and after a deal of cogitation, he decided, in so doing, to come down with the defective wing on the inside of the turn—he hoped that that was the correct procedure. He had often noticed on sundry occasions when flying or approaching certain clouds that the compass exhibited a tendency to dance a tango. Mr. Bell said he had been struck by the deficiency of fin area at the rear of some machines- and proceeded to show, by the aid of sketches upon the blackboard, how essential it was to have enough surfaee, not only to the rear, but also above the C.G., remarking that certain machines appeared to him to be quite unsafe. He would like to know whether this was so, or not. He also referred to the fitting of airbrakes on various machines and observed that such devices should conform to three require ments, which he enunciated as follows—they should (a) not tend to produce any upsetting effect upon the machine ; (6) not mask the controls in any way, and e) should be readily capable of being put on and taken off, if desired. He had noted that some constructors gave the maximum speed of their machines as, say, 95 miles per hour, and perhaps they would be capable of reaching 103 or even IIO miles per hour. But the lower range of speed was sometimes quoted as low as 35 miles per hour and although it might be correctly given, it appeared to him that the fields often required " a lot of chasing." What would be the eventual solution of this problem he could not say, but the proposal of M. Bleriot to split the rudder vertically might prove satisfactory. Mr. Leonard Bairstow said he had been much interested in remarks of the two lecturers, and with regard to the questions that had been propounded, they could be and are the subject of calculation. If the tail fin and rudder areas were made too large, the machines became more dangerous. The machine might sideslip inwards if it had too small a dihedral and too large a rudder, whilst, if the dihedral was made too great and the rudder too small, there would be a loss of control by the rapid oscillation of the machine and it would even tually turn tail foremost. Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman said that he was inclined to wonder whether Mr. Hucks ascribed too large a share in the credit for the recent progress made by pilots to the increase in confidence, as his increase of skill, which includes so many attributes, makes more for safety than the growth of confidence. In the spirit of enquiry, he would like to know whether Mr. Hucks could elibsrate the point that his remarks appeared to convey rather than to state, that flying into a head wind assists the climbing speed, as he knew of no reason why this should be so, and possibly it was an illusion on the part of the pilot, owing to the slower progress over the earth. Isolated instances would be of no value, as in one case, which he cited, a much faster climbing speed was attained when not flying against the wind, due evidently to the fact that the pilot was in the air up cast such as is usually topped by a cumulus cloud. It was more true of the older types of biplanes than of the latest machines, that these did not when the engine was cut off adapt their gliding angle of descent. At any rate, the slip stream of the propeller over the tail need not and should not be such that when interrupted the aeroplane adopts the cabre attitude. Such a machine can be made, so that when gliding downwards if the engine be opened out, it will without any elevator movement (the elevator being supposed straight and kept so) first increase its speed and soon turn its nose up, and if the throttle be kept open, climb. He said as regards the effect of the proximity of mountains on the production of eddies, that at the
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