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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0749.PDF
JULY 15, 1920 AERD SOME GENERAL IMPRESSIONS IN going round the stands at Olympia two things impress•one at once : the general excellence of the designs, and the absence of " freaks." Compared with pre-War aero, shows,and after all that is the proper basis of comparison for an aero Show which is mainly commercial in character, thequality of the designs, the sound engineering practice embodied in the machines regarded as structures, and the amount ofscientific knowledge and research which has been applied in order to make the modern aeroplane what it is, are decadesahead of anything seen at previous aero exhibitions. The absence of freaks is a direct result of the knowledge gained•during the War. The laws governing design have been so well established that there is nowadays little room for radicaldeparture as regards general principles. That there is little to be found at Olympia of a startling character is not to bewondered at when it is remembered that the aircraft industry has been thrown, in the space of a few months, so to speak,from a state of feverish activity into one of comparative stagnation which does not permit of ambitious experimentsbeing made with entirely new types designed for commercial work. That in spite of severe handicaps, resulting from thepresent state of affairs, many excellent machines, expressly designed for commercial flying, are to be found at the show,augurs well for the day when aviation comes into its own and takes, as it most certainly will within the next fewyears, its place among the recognised means of transport of the world. The present show furnishes an indication thatthe aircraft industry is ready to, and capable of, producing the Tight machines as soon as the demand for them arises. Thatit will arise cannot be doubted for a moment ; it is now merely a question of time, and of establishing public confidence inaircraft as a reliable transporter of commercial loads. In general character the show is decidedly " commercial."That is to say out of the 28 machines there (counting in two which at the time of writing have not yet made an appear-ance) only three are military types. Of the remaining 25, two are small sporting single-seaters of low power, one isa high-power single-seater, and one a racing machine pure and simple. Of the remaining 21 machines, 13 are providedwith enclosed cabin accommodation for the passengers. This shows a decided tendency towards providing maximumcomfort for the aerial traveller, and although many of us who have been used to flying in the old open machines may stillprefer to feel the draught in our faces, there is no doubt that the air traveller of the future, who travels by air in orderto get from place to place in the quickest possible time rather than for the fun of flying, will prefer to be out of thedraught and away from the noise of the engine. The Arrangement of CabinsThat for most of the passenger-carrying commercial machines cabins must be provided may be accep^d. There is still,however, some uncertainty as to how, exactly, the cabin accommodation should be arranged. In the case of twin-engined machines the problem is fairly simple. The whole, or nearly so, of the front portion of the fuselage is availablefor passenger accommodation. In all the three twin (or multi) engined machines exhibited, the passengers' cabinextends from a point near the leading edge of the planes to some distance aft of the trailing edge. The quarters of thepilot are in the nose. The Bristol Pullman triplane has the pilot's cockpit covered in, but in the Handley-Page W8and in the Vickers-Vimy-Commercial the pilot is in the open. In the single-engined type of machine, however, the problemis less simple. Two distinct arrangements are possible. The pilot placed ahead of the cabin and seated aft of thecabin, fairly far back in the fuselage. "Both arrangements are to be found at the show, with several examples of each.From the pilot's point of view probably the forward position is to be preferred. The view is less restricted than it is whenhe is placed far aft, with a, usually, wide body and engine housing in front of him. Also he is probably better able to" feel " his machine than when he is far aft. In the latter position a small movement of the elevator, when about toland, results in the pilot feeling his seat drop a considerable distance, owing to his position so far aft of the centre ofgravity. In consequence, until'he becomes accustomed to the machine, at any rate, he may think he is too tail-down,and consequently land the machine considerably faster than he intends to do. Against the forward position, betweenthe engine andThe cabin, is this to be said that differences in the number or weight of passengers will affect the trim ofthe machine. It is true that this can be counteracted by a trimming tail, but usually any great variation from thenormal of the angle of the tail plane is not conducive to making the machine nice to fly. Also when the pilot isseated close to his engine he is probably more liable to injury in case of a crash. The whole problem is one which timealone can solve, and as in so many other things connected with engineering the final result may quite probably be acompromise. At the show one finds already one such example of compromise in the Westland Limousine, wherethe pilot sits next to but a little higher than the seat of the aft passenger. The result of this arrangement is a verycompact disposition of the "live" load, with the pilot approximately in his normal position, and with the pas-sengers so close together and near the e.g. that differences in weight or number of passengers will have no undue effecton the trim of the machine. The Matter of Engines. A perusal of the double-page table and silhouettes of the machines, published in our issue of last week, shows thatof the 28 machines, two only are fitted with rotary engines. This is rather significant, and would seem to indicate that inspite of its light weight the rotary is not considered the most suitable type for commercial work. Whether this viewis only temporary, or whether it indicates the final exit of the rotary for civil aviation yet remains to be seen. It canscarcely be denied that the rotary is a delicate piece of mechanism, requiring a lot of looking after if it is to run welland reliably. Guarding Against FireOne of the serious risks of flying, and certainly one of the most terrifying to pilot as well as passengers, is that offire on board. If full data regarding machines catching fire were available it would be found that the percentage ofmachines burnt is very small. It is, however, a risk which has to be considered, and which must be guarded against atall costs. The show at Olympia indicates that manufac- turers are beginning to be full ' alive to this fact, and are takingthe necessary precautions. In the first place fireproof tanks, are beginning to be the order of the day. The fitting of theseis mainly a safeguard against fire following a crash. To prevent the possibility of a machine catching fire while inthe air such precautions as gauzes in the induction pipes and fireproof bulkheads between the engine housing and the restof the fuselage are becoming increasingly evident. By these means the risk of fire is practically reduced to vanishingpoint, and when the time comes, as it certainly must some day, when machines are built entirely of metal, the lastpossibility of danger from this source will have been, to all intents and purposes, precluded. Metal versus Wood and FabricAlthough one finds in several of the machines exhibited metal construction employed to a greater or less extent,there can be no doubt that by far the greater majority of the machines are built, as regards use of materials, on thesame principles as have been in use for years. While this can be readily understood—the " old-type " constructionis certainly simpler where small quantities are concerned— it is nevertheless to be regretted. It is scarcely to be dis-puted that metal construction will come—must come; and it would appear that manufacturers are—as it was put tous by the chief engineer-of a firm which has done a very great amount of experimenting with metal construction-^-merely 749
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