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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 1284.PDF
FLIGHT, DECEMBER 11, 1931 its feet. But like all compromises it failed to give the maximum of efficiency in any one direction. While British air routes were confined to the London- Paris service, that was of no great moment. Gradually the British air net has been spreading— slowly unfortunately, but still spreading—and during its growth we have clung to the system instituted in the earliest days of commercial aviation and built our aircraft for passengers and mails, with the former pay load predominating. There was some excuse for this. As Mr. Handley Page once said, it is so much easier to persuade 160 lb. of passenger to travel down to Croydon, get into an aeroplane, fly across to Paris, get out at Le Bourget and travel by car to the centre of Paris, than it is to transport and distri- bute 160 lb. of mails in the same manner. The passenger does much of the minor transport unaided. The mails have to be handled at every stage. The advent of long-distance Empire air routes has put quite a different complexion on the subject of air mails. In other words, we have come to the parting of the ways, as was predicted in FLIGHT several years ago. The passenger, to return to Mr. Handley Page's remarks, unconsciously helps the air transport company quite a lot. But in return he demands a standard of comfort which His Majesty's mails do not require. For his 160 lb. or so of weight he demands a good many cubic feet of space. That means a large fuselage or boat hull, whichever type of aircraft is being used, and a consequent increase in drag and horsepower. He demands a reasonably comfortable chair to sit in (and sometimes he gets it), which means extra weight and a consequent reduction in pay load. He demands that noise shall be reduced to bearable proportions, which means extra weight again and a further reduction in pay load. The cumulative effect of all these things is to make it a very costly business to increase greatly the operational speed of a passenger-carrying aircraft. The mailplane, on the other hand, can be designed for greater aerodynamic efficiency and much higher cruising speed, because for their weight the bulk of mails is small—at any rate when compared with a human being. But so long as we stick to the old policy of machines carrying both mails and passengers, the operational speed is being kept down because of the passengers, for the reasons outlined above. If we are to make full use of the time saving which aviation has to offer, we must design specially for the mails and for a higher cruising speed. The Air Ministry has realised this for some con- siderable time, and in the spring of this year it was announced that a competition for mailplanes was to be held. The announcement was made just about the time the late Com. Glen Kidston made his record flight to the Cape, and the specifications were generally thought to be Britain's reply to the fast air mail problem. As such it had excellent effect, and everywhere the production of the new machines was looked for eagerly. Now at last Great Britain was about to show the world what a really fast air mail machine should be. In high-speed aircraft Great Britain is supreme, and in many types of military aircraft she can more than hold her own. But she has never made a serious attempt to produce a fast mailplane, although the type is urgently needed. The specification, broadly speaking, called for the carry- ing of 1,000 lb. of mails over a distance of 1,000 miles at a still-air cruising speed of 150 m.p.h. Compared with any commercial aircraft which we had hitherto produced this was a formidable problem. The designer was, it is true, left a free hand in the manner in which he would tackle it. He could make his machine single-engined or multi-engined. He could make it a monoplane or a biplane. He could, presumably, please himself whether he used air-cooled or water-cooled engines, although the question of maintenance would obviously have to be taken seriously into consideration. But a cruising speed of 150 m.p.h. carrying such a pay load over such a range was a " teaser." Nevertheless, British designers set to work, and it is indicative of the seriousness which British aircraft firms attached to the competition and to the type that no less than 22 tenders were submitted. Those who know what it costs merely to design an aircraft—quite apart from any question of subsequent construction—will know that these 22 designs must have cost the British air- craft industry a very large sum of money. If the order were not to be placed after all it would repre- sent a very serious loss to the aircraft industry, not to mention that cancellation would be a moral if not a legal breach of faith. It is not even as if the type was one which was not very much wanted, or the production of which could just as well be undertaken a few years hence. The mailplane is very urgently wanted, and delay may readily have consequences the extent of which cannot at the moment be foreseen. Other countries are hard at work on the sa^e problems, and it is by no means a stretch of the imagination to visualise that by delaying the production of our mailplanes other nations may get such a lead that shortly British Empire mails will be carried largely in foreign air- craft. Already the Dutch East Indian air mail is showing what sort of competition we have to reckon with, and others will undoubtedly see their oppor- tunities elsewhere in the Empire. Thus the matter is not one which we can afford to regard complacently as a parish affair of no great importance. The whole subject of Empire communications is involved, and the holding of the Empire Conference lends fresh point to the argument. Then there is the effect which cancellation of the order would have on the British aircraft market. In military types it is a well known fact that as soon as a certain type has been accepted by the British Air Ministry, it is very much easier to sell it abroad. Such has now become the standing of British service aircraft that potential purchasers abroad are very much following the principles of the old song, " What is good enough for Nelson is good enough for me." We are quite certain that many of the designs for mailplanes would find a market abroad. But the foreign purchaser is, very naturally, sitting on the fence and waiting for the first machines to be pro- duced so that he can see for himself what sort of practical qualities the machines can be counted upon to have. If no order is placed, he will defer the placing of his order, and very possibly go elsewhere. From every possible point of view it is to be hoped that the Treasury may be convinced that the cancella- tion of the order for mailplanes would be very false economy. m 1206
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