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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0977.PDF
OCTOBER 18, 1928 ERLIN (Continued from page 890.) IN our issue of last week we gave very briefly a list of the aircraft exhibited at the Berlin Aero Show. Neither time nor space permitted of anything like a detailed description of the sixty or so machines shown, but we were able to inform our readers of what there is to be seen at the I.L.A., and to illustrate by photographs some of the more interesting types. It is now possible to sit down, so to speak, to a more leisured contemplation of the various machines, and in the present issue of FLIGHT we have adopted the plan of grouping the machines according to class, believing that in this way a comparison, where such is possible, will be facilitated, and readers interested in one particular class of machine may the more readily find the data relating to it. FLYING-BOATS AT THE SHOW As we pointed out in last week's issue, it was regrettable that it was not found possible to exhibit one of the modern British flying-boats at Berlin. Great Britain has made very great strides indeed in the design and construction of multi-engined flying-boats, and their absence from the show meant that the two famous German constructors, Dornier and Rohrbach, had it all to themselves in the matter of large flying-boats. A com- parison with one or two modern British examples would have been extremely interesting, as Dornier and Rohrbach, work- ing quite independently, have each evolved a type of design differing in almost every respect not only from British practice but from each other. Which type is likely to survive, or whether the types are so nearly equal that the future will see all three types employed side by side, time alone can show. That the two German designs mentioned differ materially from British boats was descriptively expressed by one British visitor to the Show, who said, " Either we are wrong or they are." Certainly, it is difficult for one accustomed to the lines of a British flying-boat to see the merits in the German. That they do have merits one does not presume to doubt, and in the following notes we will try to discover these, even if the effect of the unaccustomed should render the process both difficult and of somewhat doubtful value. The Dornier Flying-Boats By the reading of his paper before the Royal Aeronautical Society some months ago, Herr Dr. C. Dornier gave a much better explanation of his distinctive design than the present writer could possibly do, and moreover, he illustrated by the facts and figures then given that he had found a system of construction and design in which the percentage structure weight does not increase as rapidly with size as we in England should expect. At Berlin, Herr Dornier is not exhibiting the " Super Super Wai," but merely the " Super Wai " four-engined machine, the general appearance of which is already familiar to FLIGHT readers, and, in the open between Hall II and Hall III, a " Delphin III " single-engined sea- plane which is, strictly speaking, neither flying-boat nor float seaplane, but falls between the two types. In addition to the two machines, the Dornier exhibit includes a large number of very fine scale models, specimens of structural members and test-pieces, and photographs. The " Super Wai " is a four-engined monoplane flying-boat, with the engines arranged in tandem pairs on top of the wing. Metal construction is employed throughout, even to the wing covering. In the machine exhibited the engines are Gnome-Rhone " Jupiters," but the type has also been produced and flown with great success fitted with four Napier " Lions." A VERY EFFECTIVE STAND: The Armstrong-Siddeley range of radial air-cooled engines is well displayed at the Berlin Show. 907
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