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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0006.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 1, 1932 THE HINKLER IBIS ": The experimental machine is not an amphibian, although the possibility of turning it into ' one has been taken into consideration in the design. (FLIGHT Photo.) But, in all seriousness, the " Ibis " took shape in spite of great difficulties As Hinkler himself says, when some small point cropped up, such as the machining of a fitting, he had to suffer long delays while the job could be done by someone or other. In an aircraft works it would have been a trivial thing, and done by the shops in half an hour. Under the conditions in which the " Ibis " was being built it most likely meant many days' delay. How ever, the work progressed, even if but slowly, and the machine was finished and flown. The " Ibis " is, as the photographs will show, a canti lever monoplane, with a boat-like fuselage and the two Salmson A.D.9 engines mounted in tandem above the wing. Nowadays the arrangement is apt to pass almost unnoticed, but when Hinkler first conceived the idea there were few machines with their power plants so arranged. Hinkler decided on two engines because he wanted to be entirely fiee from any fear of a sudden forced landing. In Australia, for which country he mainly designed, there are many large areas where forced landings would be at tie very least highly inconvenient and probably serious, but it also has an enormous coast line with many bays, and a number of rivers navigable to marine aircraft, so that the ideal of an amphibian flying boat was at the back of Hinkler's mind all the time. With two engines render ing the likelihood of sudden forced landings very remote, and with a retractable undercarriage on a flying-boat hull, he felt that there would be very few places where he could not go. The first " Ibis " is not actually an amphibian, but the fuselage has quite obviously been designed with the amphi bian in mind, and actually the structure has been so de vised that it would be possible to build on to the hull a pair of steps. The undercarriage is not at present retract able, but could quite easily be made so. The fuselage, or hull, is of wood, as Hinkler could obviously not tackle amateur metal construction. Methods were, however, devised whereby the wood was rendered unusually resistant to water soakage, and the shape of <•> <$> German Pioneer 60 ON January 4, Dr. Ing. Edmund Rumpler celebrates his 60th birthday, and the occasion will be taken by many societies and individuals to express their appreciation of his work. Edmund Rumpler was born on January 4, 1872, in Vienna. After finishing his studies in Vienna, he spent several years with various automobile firms, and after a while he became technical director and chief engi neer of the Adler Works in Frankfurt-am-Main. While with this firm Rumpler produced the first German motor car engine to have all its valves arranged on one side and operated from a single camshaft. It was in 1908 that Rumpler began to make aeroplanes, and in 1910 he pro duced the Rumpler Taube monoplane, a type which be came very popular. At the Berlin aero show in April, 1912, Rumpler exhibited a limousine Taube, which was certainly one of the first cabin machines to be produced. (The Avro firm produced in the same year a monoplane and a biplane machine for the Military Trials on Salisbury Plain.) About the same time Rumpler produced the first the hull is such that a metal version (with steps) could be built fairly simply. The two Salmson A.D.9 engines are mounted in tandem above the wing, and Hinkler managed to scheme out a very simple engine mounting. Once he got to the flying stage he made many experiments with the object of dis covering the best arrangement for keeping the rear engine cool. He had, we believe, no really serious trouble with overheating of the engines, but he wanted to be sure, and he wanted to get the cooling for the smallest possible price in drag. Propellers are apt to be expensive items, and we believe we are correct in saying that Hinkler never had a pair of matched propellers. That is to say, his propellers were alike, and not of different pitch, as they would have been had he been able to afford experiments to find the best combination of pitch and diameter for each propeller. In spite of all these difficulties, Hinkler really managed to do a great deal, and the " Ibis " flies very well. One of the things Hinkler had set himself to do was to pro vide a good view. The relative position of engines and pilot has been so chosen that the view is quite remarkably good. The little cabin has accommodation for pilot and passenger seated side by side, and both can look over the nose of the hull at a very good angle, as is shown in one of our photographs. The proximity of the front pro peller to the windscreen can be criticised, especially in connection with an idling engine when the machine is about to take off. or just after a landing, and if the machine were used as a flying boat, this arrangement might interfere a little with the freedom of the crew to pick up a buoy unassisted. The " Ibis " has not, we believe, " been through Martlesham," and so no official performance figures are available. The machine appears, however, to have quite a good turn of speed, and its manoeuvrability is obviously good. It is very much to be hoped that Hinkler will find ways and means to develop the type for general pro duction. The layout is not ideal, perhaps, but it has in it the makings of a very useful type. <•> <J> German 8-cylinder vee-type aero engine. During the war Rumpler designed and built a number of prototypes, and he was one of the few German constructors who never at any time during the war was told to build aircraft of other firms' design. In the automobile world Rumpler gained fame by introducing the streamline car in 1919. Since the war he has been engaged on the design of a giant ocean going flying boat (see FLIGHT, December 26, 1930), and all will join FLIGHT in expressing the hope that Dr. Rumpler may live to see his ambition achieved. A Port of Call in the West IT may be well to call the attention of those pilots who have to make journeys down to the West Country to the fact that full refuelling facilities have been installed by the Westland Aircraft Co. at their aerodrome at Yeovil. Yeovil has often been called the " Gateway to the West," and in point of fact this name is well merited, for tt is most conveniently situated for pilots, no matter what part of the West Country they are visiting.
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