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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0401.PDF
FLIGHT, APRIL 24, 1991 A 'CAPT HAWKS, whose Travel Air machine is described oaee 358, has already distinguished himself in Europehv his fast flight from Cherbourg to Paris and from Brt sels to London, and on April 22 he beat all existingtim'-s for a flight to Rome. Leaving Heston at 6.26 a.m., he .imded at Koine at 11.80, thus making the journey ing !,'r 34 min., which works out on an average speed of approximately 180 m.p.h. In making the return journey,which he decided to do without delay, he left, after refuel- ling, at 1.50 p.m.Inspecting the " Kents. ON Monday of this week Imperial Airways Ltd. hadinvited a large party down to Rochester to inspect the three " Kent " flying boats which Short Bros, have builtfor Imperial Airways services. A large percentage of the members of the party were representatives of the variousticket booking agencies, who thus were afforded an oppor- tunity to see for themselves some of the new aircraft forwhich they will be selling tickets during the coming season. The party left Victoria station by special train of Pullmancarriages, and were conveyed from Rochester station to Short's works by motor coaches. It had been intendedthat those wishing to do so should be given flights in the second Kent to be finished, and Major Brackley, of ImperialAirways, was to honour the visitors by turning joy ride- pilot for the occasion. However, one of the enginesrefused to start, and moreover the weather was far from favourable, so that the flights had to be abandoned. Thevisitors were, however, vastly interested by a tour of inspection through the works, where they saw aircraftbeing produced. The cabins of the new machines were a surprise to those familiar with passenger aircraft, althoughpossibly less so to those visitors who have never seen the lack of comfort usually found in aircraft. In the Short" Kents " an entirely new standard has been set, and the cabin is comparable in comfort and spaciousness with aPullman saloon carriage. Australian Air Mail Mishap JUST as the first experimental air mail between Eng-land and Australia, which is being carried out by Imperial Airways, was nearing the end of its objective, one of thoseannoying mishaps has occurred which slightly upset pre- viously arranged plans. The mail reached Rangoon onApril 15 and Singapore next evening, and everything ran smoothly according to schedule until April 19, when, onreaching the island of Timor, strong head winds causing a shortage of petrol, a forced landing had to be made inwhat appeared to be a nice grass-covered field. The field, however, was not as nice as it looked, with theresult that the City of Cairo was sufficiently damaged to prevent any question of carrying on to Port Darwin.Fortunately the crew and mails were unharmed, and forth- with arrangements were made for the conveyance of themails by another machine. Q.A.N.T.A.S., which operates the air mail from Darwin to Brisbane, had no machinessuitable for the Timor sea crossing, and so one of the three- < ngined machines of National Airways was chartered forthe salvage work. On April 21, therefore, Air Commodore Kingsford Smith left Sydney—according to some reports,in the Southern Cross—en route for Kupang, where he is due to-morrow, Saturday. He will pick up the mails andreturn on Sunday to Darwin, whence the mails will be conveyed to various points in Australia in accordance withthe original programme—it is hoped according to schedule. The return mail will be despatched, as previously arranged,from Port Darwin on April 27, while the second outward mail will leave Croydon on Saturday.The African Air Mail IMPERIAL AIRWAYS have been decidedly unlucky withtheir African Air Mail Service—on the southern portion, at any rate. Further break-down troubles have againdelayed this week's mails, and Col. Burchall, assistant manager of Imperial Airways, it is reported, is to fly outto Kisumu to put matters right. Meanwhile the Nairobi Chamber of Commerce has passed a resolution regrettingthat the Imperial Airways had not completed the experi- mental stage before inducing the public to use the service.The resolution is being forwarded to the Imperial Airways ; nd the Government, the latter being asked whether it is ossible to suspend the subsidy until the service is satis-: tctory. 'afety in the Air DR. PIERCY, delivering his second Howard lecture efore the Royal Society of Arts on Monday night,- pril 20, gave figures for the " Silver Wing " service of I iperial Airways to Paris, showing that their factor oft'-e safety, from the passengers point of view, was excep- tionally high, and he gave statistics by way of comparisonshowing that the safety in motor cars was very much lower. Speaking generally, he explained lucidly the factorswhich govern the safety of an aircraft both structurally from the point of view of design, and he claimed that thepilot himself acted as a safety valve by virtue of the dis- comfort he experienced when putting undue loads upon themachine and therefore upon himself. He touched lightly on the type of calculation whereby the factors of safetyof aircraft are kept very high, and finally gave a clear account of the dynamic safety of the aircraft. Here heexplained what occurred when the controls were released and showed that the majority of aircraft are inherentlystable. Brief reference was made to the pros and cons of woodand metal construction, and Dr. Piercy expressed the opinion that the magnesium resources of the Empire shouldbe developed in order that we might use the magnesium alloys to a greater extent than at present. He showed aselection of slides showing different types of aircraft which were designed specifically for safety, and finally anotherselection which showed different types of metal con- struction. In conclusion he dealt with the coming traffic problem,and pleaded for the development of some form of apparatus which would give the pilot a three dimensional sense ofvision, since he said he did not think that a pilot's eyes, as they existed to-day, were sufficient to cope with thedangers which would arise when the air became crowded. Noise A VERY interesting paper under this heading was readby Dr. A. H. Davis, of the Physics Department, National Physical Laboratory, before the Royal Aeronautical Societyon April 16. Pressure on our space prevents us from publishing the paper this week, but we hope to give afairly extensive summary of it in next week's issue. " Petrol Engines for Models " THE Model Aircraft Club (T.M.A.C.) has arranged foran interesting lecture by Mr. Edgar T. Westbury on " Petrol Engines for Models," to be delivered at the JuniorInstitute of Engineers, Victoria Street, S.W., on May 14, at 7 p.m. R.A.F. Accidents Per Hours Flown MAJOR C. C. TURNER, writing in the Daily Tele-graph of April 18, has, in a very ingenious manner, arrived at the conclusion that in the two years 1929-30 the numberof hours flown by R.A.F. machines for each fatal accident was about 10,000. Major Turner explains his method ofdeduction in the following words:—" In the annual report on the health of the Royal Air Force for 1921-22 the pro-portion of fatal accidents to flying hours was given. That was the last occasion on which the proportion has beenpublished. But on February 24 this year Lord Trenchard made the following statement: ' If 1929 and 1930 aretaken together, the figures are four times as favourable as they were in the two-year period 1921-22.' Now, thefigures for this period were: 1921, 2,100 hours ; 1922, 3,187 hours—a mean of 2,643 hours per fatal accident. Itwill be observed that 1922 showed a 47 per cent, improve- ment over the previous year. That improvement has beenalmost consistently maintained ever since, and, although the precise figure is not officially published, Lord Tren-chard's statement, which, of course, is incontrovertible, shows that in the past two years the number of hours perfatal accident was about 10,000." The above is con- trasted with a statement by the French Air Minister inDecember last that in the French military air service in 1930 there had been one death for every 3,091 hours offlying. There is a possible difference between calculations based on "a death " and those based on " a fatal acci-dent," but even so the margin in favour of the R.A.F. must be very substantial. Berlin's Aviation Museum PLANS have been completed for an elaborate museum,to be erected on the Templehof aerodrome land, which will be devoted to aviation alone. This museum—funds forwhich have been obtained from German and American private sources—will display the whole history of flying,with the originals of the earliest machines, motors and models, and will constitute probably the most compre-hensive aviation museum in the world. There will be a court of honour containing busts and portraits of thepioneers of modern aviation, etc., while it is suggested that a restaurant seating a thousand persons, and halls forconferences, should be added. Dr. Eckener has been asked to transfer the Zeppelin museum at Friedrichshafen to theBerlin museum. 369
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