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Aviation History
1932
1932 - 0452.PDF
FLIGHT, MAY 13, 1932 " FEATHERING " : The blades of the Turnbull propeller set edge-on to the direction of flight. In the case of an engine on a multi-engined aeroplane stopping, the blades would be turned to this angle to give minimum drag. which forms part of the gearing, by means of which the drive is transmitted from the spindle of the electric motor to the airscrew blades. This gear ratio is, as already mentioned, very high, so that an electric motor of quite low power suffices to operate the pitch. Actually the motor is of J h.p. and 12 volts, so that it can be driven from the accumulator already carried on most commercial and military aircraft. The gearing and motor speed are such that the pitch angle is changed at the rate of 1 degree in 3-4 sec. The Turnbull V.P. propeller is naturally somewhat heavier than a fixed pitch airscrew, but the increase in weight is by no means prohibitive. Many of the parts can be standardised for quite a wide range of powers, such as for instance the electric motor and its gear trans mission, the main central sleeve, and many of the other smaller parts, provided blades with the same type of root are used. The electric motor is placed on the front part of the hub, where it offers very little air resistance, but if desired it could readily be enclosed in a small spinner. Mr. Turnbull is in England for a limited time only, and any firm or individual desiring to communicate with him with a view to making arrangements about the European rights should address their correspondence to Mr. Turnbull, c/o the Bank of Montreal, 9, Waterloo Place, London, S.W.I. SKYWRITING jffT SELECT Committee of the House of Commons, C^OI under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Steel- Zs -UL Maitland, has been set up to consider the use of appliances for projecting writing or other displays on the sky, or for broadcasting speech or other sounds from aircraft, and to report on the desirability of legisla tion in this connection. The Committee held its first meeting or. April 22, and has been sitting every Tuesday and Thursday since that date. At the meeting held on May 5 evidence was given from the legal standpoint, and we think the following, which we quote through the courtesy of The Titnes, throws a very interesting and valu able beam on the clouds that have been obscuring the problem of " air ownership." Mr. Walter Monckton, K.C., in his summary of evidence, said that the prima facie rule of law was that the column of air above a plot of land was the property of the landowner. The common law had always abhorred the idea of ownerless tracts. In accordance with the principle of finding an owner for every tract of space, the common lawyers naturally assigned the superincumbent air as well as the subjacent minerals to the surface free holders. The maxim adopted was Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad caelum el ad inferos. He did not think that a Court would now feel itself at liberty to disregard this maxim. The maxim, however, was evolved at a time when the ownership of the air was a matter of merely academic interest. The Courts would probably tend nowadays to construe the rule as narrowly as possible. Accordingly, he was of opinion that they would reject the contention that a landowner had property in a passing cloud. This result could be reached by analogy from the rule that a landowner had no property in animals feree nalura that were on his land unless he had reduced them into possession. It had further been suggested (Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 24, p. 156) that the strict right of property did not extend skyward without limitation so as to entitle the owner to sue in trespass ; the contention was that the extent of the right was limited by ths power of control and could not extend beyond possible possession ; and that probably the ownership was limited to the air space required for the erection of buildings. It seemed difficult, however, to find legal basis for this view. Pollock on Torts, twelfth edition, p. 352, suggested that the most reasonable rule would be the limit of possible effective possession. But he appeared to recognise the difficulty of finding a legal basis for this proposed limitation. In short, it was unlikely that this right of property would be limited to the height of buildings ; even if it were limited to the area which could be brought into effective possession, it must extend to all the air which would be used by a sky-writer, whether by means of a projector or an aeroplane, for in either case the sky-writer would be bringing so much of the air into effective possession and the occupier, deriving his title from the freeholder, could do the same. TRESPASS AND NUISANCE. Taking sky-writing by projectors, two remedies suggested themselves— trespass and nuisance. A difficult question arose whether the sky-writer effected an '' entry " upon the space selected. Assuming that there was such an entry, he thought that the occupier would be held in England to have an action of trespass. But whether it were possible or not to make an " entry " solely on the property which another had in the air, he doubted if that " entry " could be made by a beam of light. For although a beam of light was at any rate so " material " as to be affected by gravitation, it would not he thought, be regarded by the Courts as sufficiently corporeal to justify a rinding that there was physical interference with the plaintiff's property. It was difficult to distinguish the case of the projection of a beam of light from the case where a piano-player in an adjoining house emitted waves of sound which found their way into the plaintiff's premises ; and in that case he did not doubt that the Courts would regard the remedy as lying in nuisance rather than trespass. With regard to nuisance, he thought that a person who turned his headlights on to his drawing-room windows so as substantially to interfere with his ordinary comfort could be proceeded against in an action for nuisance, but in the case of the projector it would be difficult, unless sky-writing was devel oped in intensity, to prove that the light thrown on the sky above his premises was a substantial interference with the ordinary amenities he enjoyed, and damage in this sense was an essential ingredient in an action of nuisance. For these reasons he thought that the law did recognise a right of property in the air above the freeholder's land sufficiently extensive to cover the opera tions of this, and indeed any, type of sky-writer, but that the occupier would not be likely to succeed in an action of trespass or, so far as sky-writing was known to him to have developed at present, in an action of nuisance. With regard to sky-writing by an aeroplane, an aeroplane crossing the boundaries which limited the air occupied by him above his holding would in his view, commit a trespass but for section 9 (1) of the Air Navigation Act, 1920, and it was to be noted that that sub-section protected only in respect of trespass or in respect of nuisance " by reason only of the flight of aircraft " over property. This would not, in his view, protect against an action of trespass if the sky-writing aeroplane instead of flying over the property, hovered for a substantial time while writing. There might, of course, be difficulties in this case also in proving that the aeroplane was, in fact, over the plaintiff's premises. He thought that an action of nuisance would lie if the noise emitted by the aeroplane—whether or not it had a loud-speaker—was sufficient to interfere with the ordinary amenities of the occupier. It was a public nuisance to do an act not specifically authorised by the law if the effect of the act was to endanger the comfort of the public. The question of fact would be the same as those involved in a private action of nuisance. The remedv was to indict the aviator as for a criminal offence. ESSE " Punch " Summer Number IF the coming summer is one-quarter as bright and full of punch as the Punch Summer Number, just pub lished, we shall have little or no cause to grumble. In one respect only would we have it differ—and that is in the matter of dryness! Excluding advertisements (and these are always lookatable in Punch), there are some 48 pages, made up mainly of illustrations—many in full colours—by well-known Punch artists, who this year are, we think, at their best, both as regards the handling of pen or brush, and humour. So good -are they, in fact, we find it impossible to pick out any for individual mention. We have always thought that the modest shilling demanded for these special numbers of Punch—Summer or Winter— has been well spent, but this time especially so. Miss Amy Johnson and Mr. J. A. Mollison Engaged THE engagement was announced on May 10 of Miss Amy Johnson, who accomplished a record solo flight to Australia in 1930, to Mr. J. A. Mollison, who recently made a record flight to the Cape. The marriage, it was announced, would take place almost immediately. It will be remembered that Mr. Mollison was planning shortly to fly, with Capt. V. P. Saul, from Ireland to New York across the Atlantic. It is not known if these plans will now be modified, but it has been rumoured that Miss Johnson may join him in this or a similar attempt. 420
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