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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0932.PDF
In the case of the Bristol stand, the exceptionally fine quality of the exhibited engines helps to make up for the poor location of the stand, but Imperial Airways have no such advantage, as the fuselage " mock-up " and the models, booklets and statistics, &c, exhibited on a small stand in the actual British section form a totally unworthy representation of a great company—a national company one might term it—like Imperial Airways, Ltd. Compared with the stands of German and foreign firms of the same nature, the Imperial Airways show is totally inadequate, and had better been omitted altogether. Contrary to. expectations, the organisation of the exhibition has been very disappointing. One has become so accustomed to taking German efficiency for granted that to find, as did all the British exhibi- tors, that nothing was ready upon their arrival was not only surprising but very disappointing. Stands were unprepared, the materials wherewith to build the. necessary small structures were not available, the firm recommended by the exhibition authorities was unable to cope with the work, and, to crown everything, the workmen went on strike on the day before the opening. As a result, all was confusion and the cost of preparing stands proved vastly greater than it should have been. In the case of some of the foreign exhibitors this possibly did not matter a great deal, as most of them are subsidised by their governments, but to British exhibitors, who were relying entirely on their own resources and did not receive any government assistance whatever, it was annoying to say the least. It was not only the stands themselves which were unfinished, but the exhibition halls themselves. On the morning of the official opening not a single banner with the name of the nation exhibiting on that section had been hoisted into place, but were lying, some of them unfinished, on the floors of the stands, in the gangways, &c. The halls are both devoid of any attempt at decoration, and exhibitors suit their own tastes in the matter of stands. Consequently one misses that uniformity which characterises all the French aero shows. Apart from these minor grumbles, it must be confessed that the Berlin Show is an excellent one. The variety of aircraft exhibited is little short of amazing. One sees machines which are little more than " motor-assisted gliders " rubbing wing tips, so to speak, with commercial aircraft of 2,000 h.p. or more. The light 'plane type is well represented, as is also the large commercial aeroplane, but the majority of commercial, as distinct from merely civilian machines, belong to the intermediate class sometimes referred to as the " feeder-line " type. This is a class of machine which we in England have not attempted to develop to any great extent, and with the exception of the D.H.50 we have produced little along these lines. The type is undoubtedly growing in popularity, and appears worth cultiva- ting, at least for sale abroad and in the Dominions if not at home. <s> <s> The Singapore Base THE Admiralty announce that they have now acceptedthe tender of Messrs. Sir John Jackson, Limited, of 53, Victoria Street, Westminster, for the construction of the newdockyard at Singapore, the contract time for completion being seven years. Bristol "Bulldog" as Service Fighter THE Bristol " Bulldog" has been selected as a Service Fighter by the Royal Air Force. Sufficient numbers are OCTOBER 11, 1928 Of large commercial machines Great Britain has none at the Berlin Show, but in the light 'plane class we have seen nothing at I.L.A. which threatens to outdistance our " Moths," " Avians " and " Blue- birds," which somehow look—at least to English eyes—very much prettier and at the same time quite as practical and serviceable as anything produced by other nations. The flying boat class is represented but poorly at Berlin, there being but one Rohrbach and one Dornier in the German section, and a single small Italian flying boat in the foreign section. It is very much to be regretted that Great Britain was not able to show some of our modern flying boats such as the Shorts, Supermarines and Blackburns, which would have compared well with the examples of non-British boats exhibited. We have long held the view that in this particular branch England leads the world, and we have seen nothing at Berlin to cause us to change that opinion. The necessity for retaining in the Berlin Show a stricth7 " civilian " atmosphere has led to some curious anomalies, such as machines which are obviously two-seater fighters, with a swelling of the rear cockpit ready for the Scarff gun ring, but mildly and not at all convincingly " disguised " by having large windscreens placed ahead of the cockpit. The German section is impressive, as was to be expected, but is entirely dominated by the three large firms, Junkers, Dornier and Rohrbach, and Hall I gives one the impression that the rest of the German aircraft industry is merely allowed to exist by these firms because they build small types of aircraft with which " the big three " do not want to be bothered. One may be wrong in this, but that is undoubtedly the impression one receives. Junkers in particular seems to " overawe " the section by having taken the whole end of Hall I and erecting partitions so high as to shut him off from the rest of the German section. His next-door neighbour is Rohrbach, whose giant three-engined flying boat is large enough not to be dwindled by the high walls. Next to that is a Dornier " Super-Wai," the " Blauwal," with four Napier " Lion " engines, which also is large enough to maintain its dignity in the shadow of Junkers, so to speak, but after that the German section suddenly becomes devoted to " small fry," the largest machines apart from the three firms already mentioned being those of the Focke-Wulf firm. Soviet Russia is very well represented with a series of aircraft of widely differing type, and the Russians appear to have assimilated much of the best practice from Western Europe and to have incorporated it in original designs. Metal construction predominates on the Russian stands, and the manner of using metal, as well as the workmanship, is better than one would have expected. The French, Italian and Czech sections have little that is new to show, but there are no " freaks " to be found on their stands, and this in itself may presumably be taken as a form of progress. <•> <$> being ordered to equip one squadron first. This is in accordance with Air Ministry practice, and no doubt other squadrons will be similarly equipped. At present it is not possible to publish the number of the squadron thus favoured. French Air Ministry M. EYNAC, the new French Air Minister, has been given full powers to organise the French air units, and naval, military, and civil aviation will come under his control. 862
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