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Aviation History
1927
1927 - 0790.PDF
without reducing to any appreciable extent the top speed performance of the machine. Combining with the new automatic wing tip control slot the normal Handley Page lift slot, angles of descent approaching somewhere near the vertical, certainly easily exceeding the steep angle demanded in the competition, should be readily attained, and it is permissible to assume that, whatever its general characteristics, the Handley Page entry will incorporate these features. Concerning the remaining three entries, it is quite impossible to make any guess as to what the designers have up their sleeve. That three firms of such high standing as de Havillands, Glosters and Vickers should already have been in a position to apply for entry (the rules demand that fairly full technical particulars, as well as three-view general arrangement drawings, shall be supplied with the application) shows that these firms have already gone into the subject very thoroughly, and the very fact that the ' have come to the conclusion that it is possible to meet the very difficult requirements is in itself a promising sign. That any machine which succeeds in complying with all the requirements will have done a good deal towards greater safety is not to be doubted, and it is to be hoped that a good many more British firms will, after looking carefully into the matter, send in their applications for entry. H.P." as Not for many years have we heardOptimisT Mr' Handley Page in such optimistic mood as that which he displayed last week, when lecturing before " The Royal Aeronautical Society, with which is incorporated the Institution of Aeronautical Engineers " (not even Germany could rival this title for brevity and conciseness !). He visualised carrying 25 lbs. h.p., of which the useful load would amount to 14-85 lbs. h.p. for a duration of 4 hours, or 5-75 lbs. h.p. for a duration of 30 hours. When it is remembered that the latter figure is roughly what can be carried by present machines for quite a short duration of 3 hours or so, it will be seen that " H.P." was indeed in optimistic mood. Whatever may be one's opinion of the possibility of attaining such figures, there is no denying the fact that by his lecture Mr. Handley Page did focus the attention on the details to which we must pay more attention if real progress is to be made, and thus his paper deserves more attention than a mere glance at the somewhat rosy picture might lead one to suppose. The question of gearing is becoming vastly important, and whatever the difficulties, they must be overcome. With gearing should follow the variable pitch airscrew, and again, although presenting serious problems, we have no doubt that if the demand is strong enough and insistent enough, the problem will be solved. On the aerodynamic side, Mr. Handley Page called attention to the urgent necessity of reducing head resistance by avoiding any excrescences from the fuselage, and few will deny that here a very consider- able gain is to be attained. At the same time, it is essential that the user of the machine must be made to realise this necessity so that he does not demand equipment which will, as Mr. Handley Page so aptly put it, " add resistance to good and bad machines alike and tend to reduce all aircraft to one common level of inefficiency." Although Mr. Handley Page was optimistic, we should hesitate to say that, on the aerodynamic side, OCTOBER 13, 1927 he went beyond the bounds of practical possibility. For instance, his " ideal figure " for r - at climbing speed of 10 or 12 is surely not unattainable. In THE AIRCRAFT ENGINEER of April 28, 1927, we described and illustrated a design by Mr. James V. Martin, which gave a full-scale L/D of 18 or so. Now, even with present-day " inefficient " direct-driven air- screws, a value of yj of 0 • 75 at climbing speed is not over-optimistic, which would give a figure of 13-5 as compared with Mr. Handley Page's 12 as an optimum value. The Martin P.M.3 is a twin-fuselage design, which rather facilitates the incorporation of retract- able undercarriages. There might be certain objec- tions to the type, but at any rate it shows what can definitely be attained. (The model tests were carried out by the Gottingen Laboratory, and are, therefore, above suspicion). When he turned to the subject of subsidies, Mr. Handley Page was, as usual, very sound. We think that at the lecture he was rather misunderstood, as some of the remarks made during the discussion seemed to show. His serious claim for a different subsidy basis cannot be lightly passed over, and " payment by results " should undoubtedly have been chosen, in accordance with the recommendations of Lord Weir's Committee. Under the present scheme there is little incentive to the operating company to make any effort at obtaining more economical machines. However, the agreement is made, and presumably we shall have to go on as we are going until the present period expires. Major Mayo's suggestion that a substantial subsidy should be given for experimental aircraft seems to offer the only possible solution under present circum- stances. Exactly how this could be worked in so as to enable practical experience to be obtained with such experimental types we do not profess to know, but that a solution will have to be found is obvious. In this week's issue we refer briefly to a new type of semi-rigid airship which Semi-rigid *s being developed by British Airships, Limited, and which, it is hoped, will prove to mark an important advance both on the score of aerodynamic efficiency and that of low cost and maintenance. It is too early in the day yet to express an opinion as to whether the new type of ship will attain the aims of the designers, but that there is still a useful field for the relatively small semi-rigid we firmly believe. It has become the fashion of recent years to think of airships in terms of millions of cubic feet, but the much more modest semi-rigid could undoubtedly be used with advantage on relatively shorter routes. For instance, it is con- ceivable that a service with small airships might be operated by means of which travellers could spend the better part of each day in making business calls in the large European centres, and do their travelling from city to city at night. By way of illustration, the circuit Berlin-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Oslo and back could be covered in a few days. Or a central Euro- pean circuit such as Leipzig, Breslau, Vienna, Munich and back to London might be arranged. The ability of the small airship to travel at night, and the low first cost contemplated by the company, which should enable fares to become very reasonable indeed, point to the practicability of such a scheme. At any rate, the results attained with the first ship, B.S.R.l, will be watched with very considerable interest. 12
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