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Aviation History
1923
1923 - 0168.PDF
be no great war for the next ten years from 1919) no longer holds good, and if the Committee of Imperial Defence came to the same conclusion, and thought that a larger Air Force should be raised, then quite possibly a.larger Air Force would be raised. Thus, so far from any great reduction being made in the Air Estimates, it is within the bounds of possibility that supplementary sums may be allocated later, in order that our present unsatisfactory position in the air may be at least partly remedied without delay. After four and a half years of comparative inactivity we appear at last to be awakening, as a nation, to the vital importance of aviation, a fact which FLIGHT naturally accepts with the greatest satisfaction, having for years—ten or more—preached the gospel that the future of the British Empire lies in the air. There is still ample room for controversy in the matter of ways and means, but once the necessity for strong action has been generally appreciated, the rest is a matter of detail and should be comparatively easy. • • • „ . . The announcement made by Sir Samuel at I.L.U.G. Hoare in the House of Commons recently, in reply to a question by Admiral Sueter, that an official committee has been formed for the purpose of co-ordinating British effort in showing exhibits at the forthcoming exhibition at Gothenburg, is gratifying. The committee is under the chairmanship of Sir Sefton Brancker, and includes representatives of the Air Ministry, the S.B.A.C, and the Department of Overseas Trade, and it is to be hoped that arrangements will be made to send a really representative selection of machines to Sweden for the exhibition. In this connection the seaplane should not be overlooked, as being a type particularly suited to Scandinavian conditio'ns. So far nothing has been said about sending a squadron of the R.A.F. As we have stated re- peatedly in these columns, we consider a great deal of good might be done by sending such a squadron. It is understood that France is sending a squadron, which will take part in the competitions, give demon- stration flights, etc., and a similar squadron from this country would help greatly by " showing the flag." There is little doubt that the Admiralty will send more than one man-of-war to the marine exhibition which precedes the aircraft show, so why not an R.A.F. squadron ? •» «• •» Elsewhere in this issue we publish a description of a small single-seater •Plane designed by the Air Navigation and Engineering Company, Ltd., of Addle- stone, Surrey. For want of a better term we have referred to the machine as a " light 'plane," much as in the automobile world cars below a certain size and weight are termed light cars. We are not enamoured of the term, but the difficulty is to find a better. The term " glider " has already come to mean an aeroplane without engine, and obviously could not be applied to a machine fitted with an engine powerful enough to carry it to 25,000 ft. The new design proves in no uncertain way what we have contended for a long time, that it is possible to design a machine with an engine of very low power, which will give quite a good performance, and at the same time be nearly as economical to run as a motor- cycle and side-car. The A.N.E.C. monoplane is estimated to do approximately 60 miles per gallon of MARCH 29, 1923 petrol, which is certainly not more than a large combination outfit consumes, while the light aero- plane travels at an average cruising speed of over 60 m.p.h., a figure which could not be maintained by road vehicles. The possibilities of this type of aeroplane are practically unlimited. The cost should be so low as to be within the reach of very large numbers of private sportsmen, while in the colonies such a machine would be capable of very practical utilitarian —apart from sporting—use. As part of the training scheme for pilots the type also has a great future, arid might well form a stepping-stone between the dual control and solo machine, or even between the glider and the first power-driven large aeroplane. We therefore look forward to a rapid development of the light aeroplane, both for pleasure and utility purposes, believing that this type of machine will be the means of getting actively interested in aviation many who would not otherwise have been in a position to afford the purchase and running of their own runabout. • • • On more than one occasion we have Jitni^ss Fefe"ed' .in th* Past> to the+ un/airCertificate handicap imposed upon the constructors of small aeroplanes, or rather aeroplanes having small engines. The minimum fee charged for an airworthiness certificate for a new type of aero- plane is £65, which is much too high for the majority of machines with engines under 100 h.p. In the case of the new type of machine, which we have referred to as a " light aeroplane," this fee is not only too high, it is quite prohibitive. As the cost of such a machine may be expected to be in the neighbourhood of £200 to £225, £65 added to it will make a very great deal of difference. We are well aware that this fee is demanded for the first machine only of a type, but even so it is excessive, and it is quite clear that when it was decided upon those who drew up the regulations did not foresee that some day we should have machines flying with engines of anywhere between 10 and 20 h.p. We appreciate that the Director of Civil Aviation is a very busy man, and that this matter may easily have escaped his notice, but we do urge the necessity of giving careful consideration to the question, and feel certain that, once it is brought to his notice, our very energetic and fair-minded D. of C.A. will, if it be at all possible, see that a remedy is found, and that a type of machine which is only just beginning to be developed is not unfairly handicapped by a set of rules which obviously were drawn up with machines of the ordinary type in view. One reason why the fee should be capable of being reduced is that in the very nature of things such machines will have a reasonably high factor of safety, simply because it is practically impossible to reduce the material as much as the strength allows, as sections would be so thin as to appear at once flimsy, even to a man not trained in stress calculations. Special rules should, therefore, be applied to these machines, and simplified require- ments which would allow of reducing the fee to £5 or £10 at the most. In any case, the work of checking the stress calcu- lations is not such a very specialised job as to require payment to the tune of £65, as will be realised when it is pointed out that this figure represents the work of a £500 a year man for six weeks. The methods have been reduced largely to a matter of routine work, and certainly would not occupy an experienced man for more than a couple of days. 168
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