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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0590.PDF
flatly. A has learnt from the beginning that he was alwayson the safe side in dropping her nose a bit on a turn ; B always thought it unnecessary. Personally I do not think that the stable machine is the best for training. If it is considered so on the score that once in the air it will look after itself and so reduce the chances of the pupil crashing, then we have only to assume for the sake of argument that a self-landing training machine has been devised that will automatically land itself correctly, do away with the smashes on landing, and ultimately, with a few more improvements, all the pupil need do would be just to sit still and take the air, as everything would be done for him ; but after many hours of joy-riding on this super-school machine he would have learnt very little about piloting. For securing Aero Club certificates for pupils at so much a head as a commercial proposition, this sort of machine might be excellent, but the unstable machine should be used as the basis of training to get the best results in the end._ I now come to another question, over which there is a deal of controversy. It is the use of instruments for training. I consider instruments as valuable accessories to any machine, but only under certain circumstances are they necessities, and in training they should not be regarded as indispensable. It is the wrong system, in my opinion, for the pupil to be made to rely on them too much. Although flying is largely a mechanical procedure, there is a tremendous lot of the personal sensation and feel that the pilot should acquire which, when once acquired, will take the place of practically any instrument devised. For instance, could an ice-skater learn to do the outside-edge merely by looking at a bubble of a spirit-level fixed in front, of him ? I should say no, but once he had acquired the feeling that he had correct balance, which only practice can give, he will make his sharp turn on the outside-edge at the correct angle better than any instrument could show him. Therefore I say let the pupil acquire without delay that naturally instinctive feeling so absolutely essential for a good pilot. Whilst he is taught to rely on his instrument too much to climb, turn, or even try and land, he will be long (if ever) in "acquiring the art that will make him independent of instruments. Personally I seldom use an instrument as an assistance to piloting. Do not assume that I am sneering at instruments ; in fact, as I have stated, there are times when they are a necessity. In fact, I am going to suggest that one more instrument be fitted as a standard equipment, an instrument to reduce the risks connected with flying in clouds. It may not generally be known that there have been such a large number of fatal accidents during the last three years entirely due to flying through clouds, and I consider this subject wants going into pretty carefully. The accidents to which I refer have not been questions of a want of height; the machines have become hoplessly out of control. I will give you an instance which happened to myself a few weeks ago in the West of England. You will then realise why I consider this is a serious matter requiring particular attention. I set out on a very cloudy, windy day, to do a test climb to to.ooo ft. on a late type two-seater. I had so often on previous occasions succeeded quite comfortably in reaching this height in spite of cloudy, overcast days, by pushing up through the clouds, usually only a matter of a few minutes, into bright sunlight and the bluest of skies, and, after reaching the desired height, coming down again through the clouds, having flown by compass and time. On this particular day, how- ever, the wind was very gusty, and on reaching 1,200 ft. we got into dense rain cloud, but carried on to beyond 5,000 ft., still in the cloud, when the compass apparently began to swing (really it is the machine that begins swinging, not the compass), and efforts to check the compass had the effect of causing it to swing more violently in the other direction. The air speed then rushed up far beyond normal flying speed. All efforts to pull her up checked her only slightly. Then the rudder was tried ; back went the air speed to "zero. There was an unusual uncanny feeling of being detached from the machine, and I knew her to be literally tumbling about in the clouds. All efforts to settle down again to a straight flight seemed to be unavailing, until we emerged from the cloud very nearly upside down. Assuming control again was then an easy matter. This sort of thing has happened to me more than once, and, in the Flying Corps vernacular, " it pnts the wind up you," and it has happened many times with other pilots. In some cases they t merge from the clouds in a spin, others are known in which the planes have collapsed under the strain of the sudden pull-up from the vertical nose-dive. A few days ago a squadron commander told me that on one occasion when in France everything loose in his machine fell out whilst in a cloud. A week or so ago, on the South Coast, a machine disintegrated in a cloud, JUNE 14, 1317. and the main planes landed half a mile from the fuselage^ From my own experience this is a very unpleasant state of affairs, and, in consequence, I avoid clouds when possible. Let us try and examine the cause of this. First of all you must realise that in a cloud you see nothing whatever but your machine around you. There is no fixed point visible. The only means by which you can tell if you are flying in a straight course is by your compass and your air speed. The- compass should give you your direction horizontally, your air speed your direction vertically. The first thing that happens, and very readily too, if windy and bumpy, is that your compass card will begin to move slightly. It really appears to you that the compass was suddenly affected by the cloud, and you are still flying straight ahead. How often you hear a pilot say that as soon as he got into a cloud his- compass started spinning. The moment the compass starts- moving it requires extremely delicate ruddering to get it back to a steady position ; in fact, one invariably over- corrects the compass movement, and so the trouble begins. Once the compass starts on a good swing I have found it nearly an impossibility to get it steady again until out of the cloud. Before your compass starts to move your machine has already started to turn. You rudder the opposite way to check it, over-correct it, and turn sharper the other way on tcua bank turn ; then the nose drops and speed goes up. Pulling back your elevator lever has little or no effect, for if you are banked above an angle of 45 degrees the elevator becomes the rudder. All this occurs without the pilot being in the least bit aware of the position that his machine is- taking relative to the ground. The instruments available are of little service once he loses his control. Of what use is his air speed indicator to him indicating 150 m.p.h. if the machine is on a spinning spiral and he imagines that he is merely descending too fast on a steep, straight glide ? He naturally tries to pull up, but with no - effect. The bubble does not help him, as centrifugal force will send that anywhere. It may be argued that if a stable machine is left alone under these circumstances it will right itself eventually and assume a normal glide. It very likely would if the pilot could steel himself to let it entirely alone, but before it did so it would have to be left to do a sheer vertical nose-dive for some moments, and "in these days of big weights and little head resistance one is liable to attempt to pull out too suddenly from the dangerous high rate of speed attained on this dive. What I want to see fitted is an instrument which will show a constant vertical or horizontal line and be independent of centrifugal force. I have no ideas upon the subject nor suggestions as to how this is to be brought about, unless something in the nature of a small gyroscope driven by an airscrew could be employed in some way to meet the requirements of flying in clouds, but until something is provided so that the pilot can see a fixed line, I think we shall continue to have accidents from this cause. The most marked development in the modern machine is its extraordinary capacity for climbing to a great height in a short time. At the beginning of the war the average height flown on active service was 4,000 to 5,000 ft., simply because few of the machines then in use with the impedimenta carried could get much higher. To-day a height of 20,000 ft. is, I believe, on certain occasions reached, and it is fairly certain that if progress continues at its present rate, heights a great deal beyond this figure will be reached as a usual thing. These great altitudes bring forward many difficulties which will have to be seriously considered. The first trouble in the winter will be the extreme cold to which the occupants will be subjected unless they are protected by special cowling which Will gather in the warmth given off from the engine. This, to a certain extent, is the natural advantage obtained in the tractor. The question of the difference in the comfort of machines in this respect was shown to me in a very marked manner last winter. I was testing the falf-off of engine power at a height on a tractor two-seater, in which it was specially arranged that the warm air from the radiator and engine passed along the fuselage to the pilot and then to the passenger, and although at a height of over 21,000 ft. with the thermometer below freezing at ground level, I did not suffer in the least from the cold, neither did my passenger who sat behind complain until we shut off to descend. As a contrast to this, a few days later I .was on a single-seater scout at an altitude of 17,000 ft., and although it was a tractor with a rotary motor, I suffered intensely from the cold, and became so numbed that my vitality must have been something akin to a dormouse under the snow, and, in spite of being well gloved, I had frostbitten finger tips, which pained me for many days afterwards. Surely this is a very inefficient state for a pilot at the Front to have to take on an air fight or other exacting work. Put two pilots up to a great 59O
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