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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0795.PDF
• •;;•.;':;•".,*. A.- JULY 22, 1920 • f • engines are not necessary for rapid locomotion. The tletails of the construction are already well known from previous descriptions in FLIGHT, and no further reference to them is necessary here. The Avro 548 is practically a standard Avro with an extra seat added and fitted with an 80 h.p. Renault engine in place of the usual rotary. The manner in which Avros have built this engine into the machine is highly commend- able, the appearance being excellent, as will be seen from ; " Flight " Copyright The aileron balance on the Avro Triplane the accompanying sketch. The petrol tank, which has thesection of a thick aerofoil, is mounted in the top centre section, giving gravity feed to the carburettor with conse-quent simplicity. The Short Machines It goes without saying that the Short all-metal machine is not only the most interesting on this stand but the feature of the show. This is the first time in the history of aviation that a British machine built of metal throughout, even to the wing covering, has been exhibited. It is, moreover, the first time an all-Duralumin—or practically so—aeroplane has been built in this country. It is not strictly true that the Short is built entirely of duralumin, as the wing spars are steel tubes and a few fittings here and there where local conditions demand are steel. Otherwise the machine i^ of duralumin. This metal aroused great expectations when it was first brought out. Later certain shortcomings were discovered— or perhaps it would be more correct to call them peculiarities— which led to a general impression of unreliability of the metal for parts which had to resist loads of any magnitude. This impression has, unfortunately, spread to a considerable W' r >a@K extent, and many who would have liked to use duralumin have refrained from doing so on the strength of this reputation. As a matter of fact, the metal is perfectly sound, if only it is properly treated, and it is chiefly ignorance which has precluded its more frequent adoption. Messrs. Short Brothers have, as is of course well known, had extensive experience of duralumin as applied to airship construction, and have thus had ample opportunity of learning what duralumin will and will not do, and the best way of treating " Flight " Copyright An Avro interplane strut fitting and utilising it. The experience thus gained has been made full use of in the Short " Swallow " exhibited at the show. The fuselage, which is of excellent streamline shape, is built up of a thin shell of sheet duralumin, formed by riveting together small sheets of the metal, bent over and riveted to circular and oval formers. The formers vary in cross-section, but, generally speaking, they are simple L-sections, with box section formers here and there where local strength is required. The sheets of the covering are divided and joined on the top and bottom centre lines of the body, the only other joints being the circumferential joints of adjacent sheets to one another and to the formers. The pilot's seat, the flooring and foot rests for his feet, as well as the supports for the seat itself, are made of duralumin, as are also the four cradles supporting the steel tube engine bearers. The whole engine arrangement is extremely neat and free from complications and obstructions of any sort. The engine has in front of it a radiator shaped to fit the contour of the body, making a very neat nose and fore body. It should be added that there is a duralmin bulkhead separat- ing entirely the engine housing from the rest of the machine, so that the danger of fire is reduced to vanishing point. mm mm m At Olympia : The Short all - metal machine "Flight" Cops-right m m m 795
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