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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 0982.PDF
OCTOBER 18, 1928 m m m m m m The Italian Fly- ing-Boat : View from above of the Savoia S.59. m ss m m m m 41 ^^^~ \ ',f$ v ""i^iiWIillF1 .. ^"* that Dr. Rohrbach argued that it would in any case be impos- sible to give the hull a beam sufficient for lateral stability on the water without the assistance of wing floats, and this being the case, it would be preferable for purposes of alighting to keep the beam down to the minimum necessary to enable the machine to " un-stick," and to rely upon the increased volume of the wing floats to make up for the lateral stability lost by reducing the beam of the main hull. Another feature of the machine which forcibly impresses one is the relatively short tail leverage. The monoplane wing is of very great chord at the root, and the distance from main trailing edge to tail plane leading edge appears to be less than one chord length. The wing section employed does not appear to be one which would be likely to give a particularly small centre of pressure travel, and with the high position of the centre of thrust, which one would expect to cause a very considerable difference in trim betweea the "engine-on " and " engine-off " condition, the tail leverage looks to English eyes a good deal on the short side. Constructionally, the Romar follows previous Rohrbach practice in that the wing is constructed of a main box spar very strongly built up from flat sheet and channel section, to the front and back of which are bolted the leading and trailing edges of the wing. The hull is flat-sided and flat-topped, the only portion which appears to require panel beating being the curved hollow planing bottom. As in previous Rohrbach machines, Duralumin is the material used throughout, except for certain highly-stressed fittings and bolts, and certain struts such as those to the wing floats and those supporting the engines. The hull is divided by bulkheads into watertight compart- ments, and some of them are provided with very ingenious bulkhead doors, which are opened almost as quickly as an ordinary door, but which yet make a watertight joint when closed. The details of one such door are shown in some of our sketches. The extreme nose of the hull is used for stowage and is separated from the wireless compartment by a bulkhead door. In the aft wall of the wireless compartment is another bulkhead door communicating with the pilot's cockpit, which is totally enclosed. A feature of the Romar is that a special cockpit has been set aside for the engineer, in which are all the instruments, etc., relating to the power plant. The passengers' cabin has seating accommodation for 12 passengers, and is divided by a bulkhead into two sections, of which the front cabin has four seats and the rear cabin eight. The leading dimensions and weights of the Rohrbach Romar are as follows:—length, o.a., 22 m. (72-2 ft.) ; wing span, 36-9 m. (121 ft.) ; wing area. 170 sq. m. (1,830 sq. ft.) ; draught with normal load, 1-3 m. (4-26 ft.). The petrol tanks have a capacity of approximately 7,900 litres (1,740 gallons) ; and the oil tank capacity is 400 litres (88 gallons). m is Not as Black as it is Painted : The Napier "Lion" nearly defeated the photographer, but its reputation is as bright as its colour was dark. 912
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