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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0416.PDF
FLIGHT, MAY 1, 1931 BOOK REVIEWS HANDBOOK OF AERONAUTICS* M EVER before has there been published in this country*• ' a book containing between its covers such a wealth of information on aeronautics. It was, we believe, Mr.J. D. North who said once that one of the troubles of the aircraft designer was that he had available a mass ofundigested information which it would take a very long time to sort out and correlate. The editors of this bookhave obviously set out to collect from every possible source such information as is relevant in modern times, and onthe whole they have succeeded admirably. If there is any criticism to be made, it is, perhaps, that the data havebeen somewhat inadequately collated. " Handbook of Aeronautics " is published under theauthority of the Council of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and in a foreword Mr. C. K. Fairey, President of theSociety, is careful to point out that. " although the Council cannot accept, as Much, any responsibility for the Hand-book, they are nevertheless satisfied that every possible effort has been made to produce a work which is definitelyauthoritative and as accurate as human endeavour can make it. . . ." The General Editor of the Handbook isSquadron Leader Burge, while Captain Pritchard and Lieut.-Col. Lockwood Marsh are Joint Technical Editors.The contributors are all well-known men, specialists in their particular subjects, a fact which inspires one to shareMr. Fairey's confidence in the accuracy of the material published. To check it would be a gigantic task, and theaccuracy must perforce be taken on trust. Captain J. Laurence Pritchard, Secretary of the RoyalAeronautical Society, has quite evidently had a great deal to do with the work of planning and editing the Hand-book, and it is no slight on anyone else connected with this publication to express the view that in future theHandbook will certainly become known as " Pritchard s Book," which, among his many efforts, is undoubtedlythe book. Pritchard set out to produce an aeronautical equivalent to Dixon Kemp. We are not entirely sure thathe has quite succeeded, but he has gone a very long way towards it. As he explains in his Preface, not the leastof the difficulties was to know what to leave out. We on FLIGHT can sympathise with that difficulty, for we haveto try, 52 times a year, to get a quart into a pint pot. In the Handbook is included little that appears to besuperfluous, and, on the other hand, no subject of import- ance appears to have been omitted, so that one mayassume that this particular difficulty has been overcome satisfactory. The Handbook is definitelv not a text-bookon aeronautical enginering, and presupposes that the reader has studied the subject fairly fully elsewhere. But essen-tial information required in the daily routine work of design is given in fairly accessible form, and thus theHandbook will save reference to hundreds of different publications for the particular information required. Chapter I deals with materials, and is by Lieut.-Col.Outram, Director of the A.I.D. The material included in this chapter is not new, necessarily so. But it is collectedtogether in convenient form, and is now made available to many junior designers and draughtsmen who may notpreviously have had access to all or any of it. In Chapter II, Captain Liptrot, of the Directorate ofSupply and Research, deals with Performance. Much of the material included in this chapter will be familiar fromReports and Memoranda, but again the chief merit seems to lie in all essential information being readily availableinstead of having to be dug out of numerous separate publications. It is a little surprising to find that in thischapter lift and drag coefficients are denoted by K y and Kx,symbols which might have been thought to belong to the days of Eiffel. The Americans use Ci. and CD, and theGermans C. n and Cw, while modern British practice is touse Ki, and KD. This use of K v and Kx is all the moresurprising as one finds Mr. Relf, in the next chapter, using KL and KD. It is, of course, quite immaterialwhich symbols one uses, provided they are understood, but the use of different ones in the same book may tendto cause some littlf confusion. The figures for drag of various bodies given in thischapter all refer to a speed of 60 m.p.h., a curiously incon- venient value which does not convert into an even figurefor speeds in ft./sec., and which is not in itself a very convenient figure to work with. It is probable that the very free use made of Reports and Memoranda sresponsible. The section of this chapter which deals with wing datareveals how British practice adheres to the time-honoured idea of Aspect Ratio, " Mean Chord," etc., and howlittle headway have made such conceptions as induced drag, profile drag and span loading. The author <>iChapter II is scarcely to blame for that. The average British designer is familiar with the older expressions, andprefers the complication of the old familiar way to th»- handier, but as yet slightly unfamiliar, " furrin " methods.Mr. Relf, Superintendent of the Aerodynamics Depart- ment ol the National Physical Laboratory, is responsiblefor Chapter III, which deals with Aerodynamics, and his introduction is almost the only part of the Handbookwhich is in the slightest " text booky." This is not meant as a criticism. On the contrary, the brief explanation oithe main principles of the laws of aerodynamics is very welcome. For the rest, Chapter III contains data of anumber of wings (the curves being plotted in the good old way, lift coefficient, drag coefficient and lift over drag,against angle of incidence; the polar diagram is excluded from such august company), data of a number of strutsections, figures of drag of wheels, undercarriage etc., and a large section on stability and control. Under the heading " Design and Construction "(Chapter TV), Captain Pritchard deals with strength cal- culations and kindred subjects, and much of the materialwill be familiar either from A.P. 970 or from Pippard and Pritchard's book. This chapter contains a wealth of in-formation and data, but it is rather regrettable that the subject of flying-boat hulls is dismissed with a paragraphof under 20 lines. Certainly, in the next edition, it is essential that someone with specialised knowledge shouldcontribute a substantial section on this subject. Coming as it does from such an acknowledged authorityon the subject as Mr. H. C. Watts, the chapter (V) on Airscrews is accepted without question. The only criticismone has to offer is that it is a very short chapter, and might with advantage be extended in the next edition.Perhaps the most remarkable chapter in the book is Chapter VI, on Engines, by Mr. Roy Fedden, the designerof the famous Bristol aero engines. Not only has Mr. Fedden collected data of scores of aero engines from allover the world, but he gives data of materials and how and where they are used, which have certainly not beengenerally accessible before. The rest of the Handbook is devoted to subjects notquite so intimately connected with the work of the aircraft designer, but of great interest and importance neverthe-less. Mr. Kemp and Squadron Leader Burchall deal, in Chapter VII, with Air Survey and Photography. Mr.Stewart with Aircraft Instruments (Chapter VIII), Major Stewart with Wireless Apparatus (Chapter IX), and inChapter X Captain Entwistle deals with Meteorology. Finally, the Handbook concludes with a chapter (XI) onAirship Design by Roxbee Cox and Collins. Altogether " Handbook of Aeronautics " is a publicationwhich should find its way, in many copies, into every air- craft firm in the country, while general readers who havestudied the subject of aircraft engineering in a general way will find the book highly informative. * Published under the authority of the Council of theRoyal Aeronautical Society by Gale & Polden, Ltd. Price 23s. net. Obtainable from FLIGHT Office. ANOTHER WAR HISTORY 1V/IR. SNOWDEN GAMBLE has set an ambitious task^** before himself. To find the beginnings of the history of military aeronautics in the year 1783 issomewhat startling to the reader. The first chapter explains that the author traces British military aero-nautics back to the Montgolfier hot air balloons, which were neither British nor military, but still were the ancestorsof all military aeronautics. In fact, the early part of the book is mainly concerned with balloons, and the opinionsof various past authorities as to whether they would or would not be of any use to the Army. This is all very pains-taking on the author's part, but its value, even for reference, is problematical. Then we get on the airships, and the storyof the " Mayfly " and the " Nulli Secundus " is told once again. And then come aeroplanes. There again the early 384
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