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Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0829.PDF
DECEMBER 17, 1925 ports an attachment for a shaft to a tachometer which roadsthe revolutions per minute of the engine. The carburettor is located below the crankcase. The gear-case has integral mounting flanges for the twofive-cylinder high-tension magnetos, and supports as well the gear and shaft which drives them. The magnetos workindependently ; one firing the forward spark plugs and the other the rear plugs—in all cylinders—hence there is a smallpossibility of a forced landing due to ignition failure. The couplings through which the magnetos are driven are capableof resisting or absorbing shock loads, and provide as well, a simple and ready meaps of adjustment. The lubricating system is really quite simple and shouldrequire a minimum amount of attention. Pressure is provided by a pair of gears in a pump attached to the under side ofthe gear-case. The bearings for the shafts in the gear-case and the bearings on the crankpin are under full pressure ofthe pump. The oil plug in the hollow erankpin separates and retains any heavy particles or foreign matter in the oil—thus minimizing the amount of wear on both bearing and journal. The oil pressure may be varied up to 100 lb., per squareinch if desired by regulating the load on the spring back of the relief valve. Oil passing the relief valve is returned to theinlet side of the pressure pump. Another pair of gears in the pump return the excess oil to an outside tank. The cylin-ders extend far into the crankcase and provide an oil sump between the two lower cylinders sufficient to retain and preventexcess oil from draining into these cylinders before being returned to the tank by the scavenging pump. The gears,pistons, and ball bearings on the crankshaft are lubricated by oil sprayed from the bearings and moving parts. THE LATE E. T. BUSK IN presenting this memoir of Edward Busk to the public,Mrs. Mary Busk remarks that perhaps a mother is not the right person to write a biography of a beloved son, but thatin her case the beauty of Edward Busk's character has acted as a deterrent force. In the natural order of things generallythis could not be the case, but in this volume one perceives many instances where Mrs. Busk has restricted her betterfeelings lest she be thought egotistical. Her son's memory is fresh in the minds of many engaged in the aviation worldtoday, and it is possible that at a later date his life may be incorporated in a collection of biographies of modern geniuses—for genius he undoubtedly was, as the present publication clearly proves ; or else, perhaps, we may have another editionof this volume supplemented by Shane Leslie, a colleague of Busk at Cambridge. One can only describe Busk as a prodigy in engineering.A letter written by him when ten years of age, and published in facsimile, is of extraordinary interest, displaying as it doesa deep knowledge of the mechanism of railway locomotives. A year later an engineering firm replied in answer to a letterfrom Edward, asking him for an interview in order to discuss his letter, but his mother disposed of this by saying he was aboy at school and could not call upon them. Mechanics claimed his whole attention as a youth, his quiet, dreamy andretiring disposition causing him, no doubt, to be avoided by the more exuberant and wayward spirits of his age, but tohis personal and intimate friends he exhibited an extra- ordinary lovable personality. To those who now read hislife in retrospect what can be more beautiful as illustrative of his character than the subscription to a letter of advice to hisyounger brother when the latter was starting school for the first time: "Whatever happens, NEVER TELL A LIE," thecapitals being embellished by pretty child-like flourishes. At the age of fourteen he entered a paper in a children'smagazine on " Model Submarine Boats," accompanied with coloured drawings, and from thence onward we find abundantevidence of his strong attachment to applied mathematics. In 1907 he secured a first in the Mechanical SciencesExamination at Cambridge, and Shane Leslie writes of Busk thus : " He was the most promising engineer of his year andsolved the problem of aeroplane stability under a high wind that gave the English command of the air." The story ofhis last minute compilation of a paper which won the Winholt Prize at Cambridge, besides being entrancing, enlightens oneregarding his masterly comprehension of his subject. The introduction, in 1911, of "daylight saving" in a club, ofwhich Busk was president, is of more than usual interest owing to the fact that it was four years later before legislationwas brought in to enforce the Daylight Saving Act in this country. There is much of an original character in thedeliberations of the " Broad Teeth" Club, and the har- monious manner in which all co-operated is perhaps bestillustrated by the treatment of the question as to whether the " weaker " sex should be admitted to the meetings, etc.,of the club, or not, and the varied solutions put forward by the members. This was more or less occasioned by somemembers tying the Gordian knot. It was in 1911 that Edward Busk started a series of experi-ments on flying-machine designs, and he expressed his desire of completing a successful machine before going on to com-mercial work. A year later he was appointed assistant engineer physicist at the Royal Aircraft Factory, and therelearned to fly under the tuition of Geoffrey de Havilland. Publicity came to Busk in 1913 as a result of his invention ofthe " Ripograph " for recording on a photographic strip the pilot's movements in warping and in steering vertically and 829 right and left, together with speed, inclination and roll ofmachine. By November of the same year Busk had achieved his first inherently stable aeroplane, which was called theR.E.I (the forerunner of the B.E.2r), and to his work in this connection many glowing tributes are recorded, and ourpresent Director of Civil Aviation, Major-General Sir Sefton Brancker, at this period made some experimental flightswith Busk as pilot. In May, 1914, Busk had the honour of personally showing Their Majesties, the King and Oueen,through his department at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, and later, by command of the King, he flewR.E.I with Col. Clive Wigram as passenger, on demonstration flights. When war broke out, Busk happened to be atPlymouth with the Territorial Engineering Corps, but was at once recalled to Farnborough. Of the few months thatintervened before his death, this much only is known, that Busk was among the busiest of men at the Royal AircraftFactory. One need not dilate upon this period, those days being fresh in the minds of all. It was on November 5,fittingly as the sun was setting, the light of Busk's life passed away. When about a thousand feet up, his machine burstinto flames, and glided down on Laffan's Plain at Aldershot, the pilot being incinerated. There can be no doubt that whenthe history of the progress in aviation in this country comes to be written, Edward T. Busk's name will hold an honouredplace, even, as Lord Rayleigh writes, " beside those of the Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright." Lord Rayleigh,President of the Advisory Committee of Aeronautics, pays tribute to the assistance Busk rendered in the investigation ofvery difficult problems at the National Physical Laboratory, as also did others too numerous to mention here. OnNovember 18, 1914, the Council of the Aeronautical Society decided to award, posthumously, the Gold Medal of theSociety (the highest honour which the Society can confer) in recognition of his distinguished services to aeronauticalscience. Co!. Mervyn O'Gorman, C.B., in summing up an obituarynotice, recording Busk's life and work, remarks: " He resembled other men of genius in the simplicity of his methodsand the speed at which he worked,and he was remarkable for the soundness of the scientific judgments he arrived at. Hisyouth, for he was only 28 years of age, is an added cause for regretting the termination of a career so brilliantly com-menced." Included in this book is a short memoir of Busk's youngerbrother, Flight-Commander Hans Acworth Busk, R.N.A.S., who, though only a mere youth of 21, passed through someexciting escapades in the early days of the war. On January 6, 1916, in a Henry Farman biplane, he started off to raid aGerman aerodrome, carrying a 550-lb. bomb, since when nothing definite regarding his ultimate fate has ever beenheard except the fact that it was officially announced in December of the same year that he was presumed to have beenkilled in the previous January. Mrs. Busk has done a real service in presenting this volumeto those engaged in aviation, and to anyone who may be inclined to the view that she has eulogised the work of herson over much, we can only recommend the chapter written by Major R. H. Mayo (chief assistant to Busk at the RoyalAircraft Factory), and also those passages from notable figures in the industry today. M. P. S. E. T. Busk—A Pioneer in Flight. By Mrs. Mary Busk. (With a short memoir of Flight-Commander H. A. Busk, R.N.A.S.) John Murray. 75. 6d. net. i •Jt..
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