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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0434.PDF
FLIGHT, MAY 8, 1984 BOMBING INSTRUCTION A brief description of the Vickers-Bygrave Bombing Teacher OMBING from the air is a highly complicated art. Everyone must realise by now that it is not merely a matter of taking up a load of bombs in an aeroplane and dropping them when the machine is over the target, but that hyper-sensitive instru- ments, involved calculations and close co-operation be- tween the bomb aimer and the pilot of the aircraft are necessary. The instruction of a bomb aimer (an awkward but unavoidable title) is a delicate business, and requires, besides bombing with practice bombs from an aircraft, a lengthy course of instruction on the ground. Probably the most important piece of apparatus designed in recent years for the instruction of bombing personnel is the Vickers-Bygrave Bombing Teacher, an excellent drawing of which, made by Mr. G. H. Davis at the Train- ing Headquarters of No. 601 (County of London) (Bomber) Squadron, accompanies this article. The Teacher is used for instruction in air navigation and bomb dropping under conditions which give a realistic representation of those experienced while flying. Instruc- tion takes place in a darkened room, the floor of which is whitened. On to this floor is projected an aerial photo- graphic mosaic printed on a transparency 10 inches square. This represents 1,600 sq. miles of country. As the scale of the transparency is about one to 200,000, very fine de- tail is rendered impossible, but sufficient detail is shown for the recognition of ground marks, and to produce a realistic representation of the ground as seen from a height of 8,000 or 9,000 ft. A platform represents the aircraft from which the." ground " is viewed. Means are provided to cause the image to move towards the plat- form from various directions simulating the effects of wind on the course of the aircraft. The apparatus will produce the effect of turning in a very real- istic manner. In this connection it should be re- membered that " flat turns," i.e., turns without bank, are made by bombing aircraft during an action. It is essential to make slow turns without bank when running up to the objective in order that the line of sight is not disturbed by the tilt of the aircraft. In practice, flat turns are made by keeping the wings parallel with the horizon. When, as is often the case, the pilot is in front of the wings, a horizontal wire may be aligned with the horizon. The platform which represents the aircraft is fitted up with navigation and bomb sighting equipment for the use of the bomb aimer under instruction, and a seat and rudder bar for the pilot. Means of communication such as are normally installed in bombing aircraft are provided. When the pupil has calculated the direction and force of the wind and has sighted on the target, he throws a switch which represents the bomb release. A device times an interval, equal to the time taken by the bomb to reach the ground, and at the end of this period the move- ment of the " ground " is stopped. Painted on the floor of the room is a fixed " trail point," which marks the point on which a correctly aimed bomb should drop. Any error may be seen by the difference in the position of the " target " and this fixed trail point. The Teacher is manufactured by Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd. TO AUSTRALIA IN 2i DAYS? Colonel Fitzmaurice considers that the London—Melbourne Race should be won at an average of 190 m.p.h. A FTER a luncheon given in his honour by Mr. John •""*• Dulanty, the High Commissioner of the Irish Free State, Col. j. C. Fitzmaurice gave some interesting, if perhaps optimistic, opinions on the MacRobertson race. Melbourne, he thinks, should be reached in sixty hours by the winner of the speed rac_, and he himself is looking for a single-engined machine capable of cruising at 230 m.p.h. and having a range of 3,000 miles. Although he would naturally prefer to use a British machine, he did not think that the chances of finding a winning machine here were very great, and by the time this appears he should have sailed for America just " to have "a look round." Later he proposes to fly by K.L.M. to Batavia to make a study of monsoon conditions. Many prominent Irishmen were present at the Savoy Hotel last Thursday, but Mr. Joseph McGrath, who is financing the flight on behalf of the Irish Hospitals Trust, was, unfortunately, absent. A letter was read in which he promised that, in the event of a win, the prize money would go to hospital charities in England in case a British machine was used, and would be divided in the event of a foreign machine proving the winner. Col. Fitzmaurice, in his reply to the High Commissioner, spoke feelingly of aviation and its power for good and evil. It might be a development capable of uniting the peoples together—and even as a fighting Irishman he hoped sincerely for that—or of destroying civilisation utterly. Few people, he said, realised the full capacity of the aero- plane in modern warfare, and that, properly used, it would cause a holocaust against which the destruction of Pompeii would seem child's play. He impressed the im- portance of racing research and suggested that the modern racing machine would form the basis of a future vehicle for smooth, safe travel over great distances. .Aviators were considered to be insane, but they, the aviators, thought that the groundlings were the really insane people. Among those present at the luncheon were: —Sir Hal Cole batch (Agent-General for Western Australia), Sir Dun- bar Plunket Barton, Sir Thomas Molony, Sir John Laver- ing, Viscount Castlemsse, Senator O. St. J. Gogartry, Capt. Spencer Freeman, and Air Commodore R. Williams, Chief of the Australian Air Staff. MELBOURNE CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS * -:,. ;i:-,....:.:,- No. 203 (F.B.) Squadron to Fly to Australia S, next October, the celebrations of the centenary of the State of Victoria and the City of Melbourne are held, the Royal Air Force will be represented by three Short " Rangoon " flying boats of No. 203 (F.B.) Squadron, under the command of Group Capt. R. E. Saul, which is stationed at Basra, Iraq. The machines will have to fly more than 10,000 miles from Basra to Aus- tralia, and during their stay in Australian waters they will co-operate in manoeuvres with the Royal Australian Air Force and the Navy. It is probable that the squadron will arrive in Mel- bourne during the first week in October after flying down the Persian Gulf, round the coast of India to' Calcutta, south to Singapore, and via the Netherlands East Indies to Port Darwin. From Port Darwin the probable route will be down the east coast of Australia, with halts at Rockhampton, Brisbane and Sydney. Only once previously have R.A.F. flying boats flown in formation in Australian waters. This was in 1927-28, when a squadron of Supermarine " Southamptons," en- gaged on a 28,000-mile cruise, flew down the west coast of Australia and returned by way of the east coast. No. 203 Squadron is the only R.A.F. unit using the Short " Rangoon," which is really a military version of the " Calcutta." Three*geared Bristol " Jupiters " are fitted. Fully laden the boat weighs more than 10 tons. The economical cruising speed is 93 m.p.h. and the maxi- mum speed attainable is 120 m.p.h. H. F. K. 434
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