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Aviation History
1927
1927 - 0580.PDF
Lest anyone should, from the number of " retire- ments " in the King's, Cup Race, form an erroneous impression of the reliability of British machines and engines, it may be as well to summarise the reasons which put the various competitors out of the running. The first " casualty " was of a somewhat unusual character. From blood on the machine it is assumed that the propeller hit a bird, and the result was engine vibration which caused the pilot, not knowing what had happened, to land at the first opportunity. Thus, this particular falling out certainly cannot be blamed on either machine or engine. One competitor retired as it was obvious that his handicap was hopeless. One ran out of petrol, and one lost his way, while one got buffeted about so badly by the bumps that he had to give up. Of the remaining competitors one had his petrol tank burst while on the ground, two had valve trouble, and one lost his oil pressure. Truly, not a very terrifying list of causes for breakdowns. As a race the affair was uninteresting, because after Mr. Butler fell out it was obvious that, barring accidents, Mr. Hope was a certain winner. We heard the view expressed that for the King's Cup to be won at a speed of 92-8 m.p.h. was a retrograde step. With this we do not agree. The race for the King's Cup is not, and should not be, a pure speed race, and so long as it is a handicap race, with low-powered slow machines eligible, there is always a chance for a slow machine to win ; nor is this, we think, any cause for regret. Mr. Hope had worked like a slave on his machine and engine ; he had no wealthy firm behind him to assist, and, in fact, did most of the work himself. It was a thoroughly sporting effort, and he well deserved his win. The organisation of the King's Cup Race was good, and there is only one fault we have to find with the Royal Aero Club's side of it. (It should be clearly understood that the Royal Aero Club is not to blame for the handicap formula. The Royal Aero Club is a sporting institution and not a scientific one, and its job is to organise the race, not to produce technical formulae). The allocation of racing numbers was frankly confusing. What had, apparently, happened was that as soon as a machine was entered it was allotted a racing number, so that the numbers merely showed in what sequence the machines had been entered, a subject of no particular interest to anyone, and, of course, of no significance whatever in the race. The result was, however, that the programme became very bewildering, the first machine (limit man) being No. 6, the next No. 4, the next 27, and so on. In future it would be very much better if the allocation of racing numbers were deferred until the handicap allowances were known, the limit man then being given No. 1, and so on. Then, at the finish, if No. 5 came in first, one would know that he had passed four machines. As it was, even those directly inter- ested had difficulty in following what was happening, and the general public must have been hopelessly at sea. The joke (or the tragedy, according to That now one looks at it) of the meetingFormula was, of course, the handicap formula. Actually the thing was something of both, the tragedy being that the effect of the formula was to keep from starting a large number of the machines that had been entered, the joke that nobody AUGUST 4, 1927 discovered the actual working of the formula until it was too late to make any change. There seems to be little doubt that what happened was that each firm examined the effect of the formula on its own machines and, in most cases finding that the formula under-estimated the speed, were content with that and did not trouble to find out how other people's machines fared under the formula. As the formula and curve for determining the constant K were published in FLIGHT as long ago as June 2, there is not the excuse of lack of time. Lest it should be thought that we blame the firms alone for this, we hasten to admit that we ourselves, the technical press, failed to discover the snag. In our own particular case this was mainh' due to lack of information concerning the wing spans of some of the fast machines. This, in turn, was due to the Air Ministry's " hush-hush " methods of dealing with the aviation press. (Wonderful how, with a little goodwill, almost anything can be worked around to a complaint against the Air Ministry !) The airworthiness depart- ment must have all the necessary particulars con- cerning all the competing machines, and one might have thought that some of the " best brains of the country " would have spotted the snag. If they did, they kept quiet about it. Whether we are to go back to individual th A>f t nandicapping on form, or whether we are One to continue our efforts to evolve a practical formula are questions that must be considered at once, since firms intending to build machines specially for racing will need to know the basis as soon as possible. Capt. Goodman Crouch and Capt. Dancy have reduced handicapping to a fine art, and in nearly all cases can be relied upon to produce close finishes, if that is what is wanted. On the other hand, some really useful formula, which will offer an inducement to greater efficiency, is probably to be preferred, and the question then arises whether this year's formula provides a workable basis upon which to start, or whether we shall have to get right away from it and start entirely afresh. There are, we know, those who believe that all that is required is to raise the value of the constant K from 12 to some higher figure such as 19 or 22. That would have the effect of bringing the fast machines more into line, but might do so by penalising those at the other end of the scale, thus merely transferring the unfairness from one type of machine to the other, which would be an unwise thing to do, the more so as relatively low-powered aeroplanes form a much larger percentage of those available, or likely to become available, for racing purposes. As the subject is one of very considerable impor- tance, we shall be glad to publish the views of readers and shall be willing to devote, during the next few weeks, any reasonable amount of space to a ventila- tion of the subject. Sqdn.-Ldr. Jones has made the ingenious suggestion that each firm should be allowed to handicap all the other firms' machines, but not its own. Thus, if ten firms were involved, each machine would be handicapped by nine other firms, and the average figure would probably be a fairly useful one, although all would be likely to be on the high side. At any rate, such a procedure would be amusing, if nothing else. 532
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