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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0220.PDF
FLIGHT, MARCH 8, 1934 1933, particularly in the field of agriculture. Aeroplanesengaged in agricultural work flew 45,000 hours during the course of the year, as against 13,000 hours in 1932. During1933 aeroplanes scattered chemical substances for the ex- termination of agricultural pests and the malaria mosquitoover an area of 2,924,000 acres of land, and sowed 345,800 acres of land from the air ; they patrolled 51,870,000acres of forest land, for the purpose of putting out fires, exterminating pests, etc. Civil aviation rendered invalu-able service to agriculture in aerial photographic survey and in establishing air communication in outlying agricul-tural regions. Mention must also be made of the use of aviation in theArctic regions. The brilliant exploits of the pilots Chuk- novsky, Babushkin, Slepnev and others will go down inthe history of Arctic exploration. Soviet aeroplanes are also used in polar sea expeditions, like the expedition tothe Kara Sea, and in the animal-killing trade in polar regions.The growth of civil aviation in Soviet Russia has been directly due to the development of an aviation industry.At first only foreign machines were used on Soviet air- ways and foreign motors. It is only four or five yearssince the first aeroplanes of Soviet construction began to appear. Among these early Soviet aeroplanes were thoseof the Ukrainian engineer, Kalinin—the four-seater K.4 and eight-seater K.5 ; then came the machines of thewell-known constructor, Tupolev—the nine-sea ter ANT. 9 and others. These aeroplanes, which are continually re-placing those of foreign make, have become the pre- dominant type in Soviet civil aviation. Recently, Sovietconstructors have scored a notable success in the building of the 86-seater plane ANT.14. At the end of 1931 theSoviet Union commenced to make motors for aeroplanes. This finally laid solid foundations for a Soviet aeroplaneindustry. Recently the Soviet Union has commenced te constructdirigibles, which are of great importance to a country of such vast distances. Since 1931 five small airships havebeen built, including the semi-rigid type B.5. An airship-building yard is now in course of construction,and work is proceeding on the first medium-sized semi- rigid dirigible (of 18,500 ms), a modification of the Italiandirigibles, the Nonvay and Italy. Soviet civil aviation made much progress in the year1933, many new air lines having been opened, some of them of great economic significance. These include suchimportant lines as the Vladivostok-Sakhalin-Kamchatka, which is 3,107 miles long and has opened up immensepossibilities for the development of transport in the Soviet Far East. The total length of the Soviet air lines of national im-portance at the end of 1933 was 22,992 miles, as against 18,952.7 miles in 1932. If the length of the local lines isadded, the aggregate length of the air lines at the end of 1933 was 31,691 miles. The Soviet Union now holdssecond world place in length of air lines, the United States of America holding the first. Much work was carried out in 1933 in improving thecivil aviation fleet by the addition of new machines, the establishment of more aerodromes, air stations, hangars,petrol depots, radio communication, etc. During the latter half of 1933, 42 local air-mail lineswere established in agricultural areas. These lines have a total length of 6,214 miles and required the building of164 aerodromes. The machines of the Soviet civil aviation fleet have alsorendered much help to arctic expeditions and to ships navigating the Far North. During 1933 the aeroplanesengaged in work in the Arctic flew a total distance of 144,164.8 miles ; they successfully led the Kara expedi-tion composed of thirty vessels, which had as its object the transportation of 37,000 standards of timber through theKara Sea ; they carried out an air photographic survey of the Chukotsk peninsula ; they made six flights to WrangelIsland for the purpose of relieving the personnel wintering there and bringing back furs. As a result of the workcarried out by the aeroplane " USSR N-2,'' cargo vessels made a first voyage in the estuary of the Lena River.The aeroplane had to fly day and night in uncharted regions, remaining ten days in the open sea, far removedfrom its base. Another interesting flight was that of the pilot, Levanevsky who, in a seaplane, the " USSR N-8,"flew the route Sevastopol-Khabarovsk-Alaska-Cape Severni- Yakutsk-Irkutsk. The flight was made under exception-ally heavy weather conditions to rescue the American air- man, Mattern, whose machine had made a forced landing. Plans have been made for this year to extend civilaviation still further. The length of air. lines in the Soviet Union in 1934 are to be extended to 29,827 miles, and by1937, the end of the Second Five Year Plan, to 52,819 miles. Provisions have been made for the building of therequisite number of new machines, aerodromes and other equipment. The estimates provide for a considerableextension of all branches of work of the civil aviation fleet. SPEED AND THE ECONOMICS OF AIR TRANSPORT By MAJOR F. M. GREEN, F.R.Ae.S., M.I.C.E. Lecture abridged) delivered before the Royal Aeronautical Society on Thursday, March 1, 1934. OME months ago I set out to find a logical basis fordetermining the most economical speed of flight. I did not expect an exact solution, but I satisfied my-self that I could givo a general answer to most of the problems. The methods I shall discuss are engineeringrather than scientific. Much of the data I shall use is the result of experience in design; many of the figures on whichI base my results are derived from current practice. In all these estimates of the best speed for air transport the con-venience of the passengers in saving time is entirely neglected. We will take as our unit of transport, one tonmile of pay load. The number of units of transport each aircraft can provide depends on three factors: —(o) Thenet pay load in tons; (b) the average cruising speed in miles per hour; (c) the number of hours flown per year. These three factors multiplied together obviously givethe maximum number of ton miles per hour possible. The actual revenue earned depends on this figure multipliedby the average rate per ton mile and by the average frac- tion of the maximum load carried. (a) Of these three factors, the net pay load dependslargely on the length of flight. I have for convenience considered that the range in still air is 500 miles. Netpay load means only the weight of passengers, luggage, freight and mails that earn revenue. It excludes crew,wireless and equipment generally. (b) The average cruising speed is lower than the averageair speed, on account of wind and other things. The faster the air speed, the less will this difference be. I havenot attempted to assess the advantage that the faster aircraft has in this respect except to mention it helps tooffset other factors mentioned later. (c) The number of hours flown in a year is assumed tobe constant. If the length of stages is fixed, the faster craft will do more journeys in the year and will spendmore time on the ground in consequence. This will be balanced to some extent by the smaller loss of time due towind. The money that passengers are willing to pay dependson the speed, comfort, safety and punctuality of the service. No attempt is made to allow for this. I haveassumed that all the aircraft considered are equal in all respects except speed, and I leave it to the operator todecide how much economy he deems it necessary to sacrifice for speed to attract fares. Few, if any, air linescan pay at present without some form of subsidy. If this is a percentage on the traffic receipts, then, the analysisis unaffected. If it is paid on some other basis it must be considered on its merits; it is obviously impossible togeneralise except on the former basis. If we agree with the argument so far, we come to the first conclusion ofthe analysis, that earning capacity is proportional to pay load x cruising speed. Cost of Operation To find the profit-making possibilities of an aircraft, weneed to know the relation between earning capacity and cost of working. I do not propose to give actual figures;these depend too much on the particular conditions of each route. It is enough for our purpose to know therelative costs only, and these can be estimated to reason- able accuracy in a simple way. The expense of running anair liner can be divided into two parts: — (a) Standing charges, which include; (1) Capital charges; 220
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