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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0672.PDF
FLIGHT, JULY 5. 1934 First Public Appearance - ;. It cannot be said that the R.A.F. Display programme is such as to do justice to the types of aircraft housed in the new aircraft park. The machines, 16 this year, taxi out of the park, take off and fly past the enclosures in numerical order. There is no opportunity to show the particular merits of any one type, and the most the spectator can hope for is a glimpse of a few of the machines as they hurtle (or loiter) past. It is difficult to see how, in the time available, the event could be made more attractive. The machine park, none the less, attracted a lot of atten- tion throughout the day, and crowds hung round it long after the Display was over. On Saturday last it would appear that an attempt had been made to compromise by sending the fast machines off first, and letting them fly past the enclosures twice, while the less spectacular types had to be content with the back of the stage, so to speak. The Hawker Modified High-speed " Fury," and the day and night fighters fitted with the same type of engine, were certainly impressive in their speeds and climbs, and the Bristol " Bulldog IV " with the new " Perseus " sleeve valve engine seemed particularly good on climb. Of the other new types, one had hoped to see something of the effect of the trailing edge flaps fitted on the Westland General Purpose monoplane, but the start and landing were carried out in conditions which did not enable the action of the flaps to be observed at all closely, and an expression of opinion must be deferred to another occasion. The Boulton & Paul " Overstrand " was called in to take part in an event earlier in the day. The new rotating gun turret in the nose of the fuselage is extremely ingenious, and while the machine was in the aircraft park this feature was demonstrated repeatedly. The turret can rotate through the full 360 degrees, and at the same time the gun can be trained to fire anywhere from straight up to straight down. It is rather intriguing to see the gunner rotate the turret until he is facing aft and looking into the fuselage, with his gun trained upwards and back to fire over the top centre-section. It seems quite probabte that this type of gun turret will start a new " school," and that it may have important effects on air tactics. The new General Purpose types were treated in rather stepmotherly fashion. From the very nature of the speci- fication to which they have been designed, they lack the snap and verve of the fighters, and their performance is not nearly so spectacular. But they might have been given a bit more of the " limelight." There is probably no speci- fication more difficult to meet than that for " G.P." types, with the mass of equipment that has to be carried, and the insistence, in spite of that, on quite a respectacle speed and long range. Among what the official programme called " Experi- 7 mental " types was the Hawker " Hart " fitted with the new Napier " Dagger " engine. The speed of this machine appears very high. The Set Piece ;~ Unknown to Geneva, and while the foregoing events were taking place, an imposing building on the far side of the aerodrome was a busy hive of industry—producing and storing high explosives. It was, in fact, a magazine (not the good kind you read, like FLIGHT, but that in which gunpowder, shells, and stalacite and such like high explosives are kept). Suddenly it became " hivier " than ever—syrens blew, anti-aircraft guns were manned, a balloon apron went up (one balloon was seen), and a squadron of fighter aeroplanes took off. The reason was soon apparent, for squadrons of enemy bombers could be seen approaching, to attack the magazine. They were soon overhead, with anti-aircraft shells burst- ing all around, and the light bombers (" Gordons " of No. 207 and " Wallaces " of No. 504 (County of Nottingham) dived on to their objective, a salvo of bombs causing some damage. The heavy bombers (" Heyfords " of No. 99) followed this up with slightly severer punish- ment, while an attack on the balloon resulted in the latter being brought down in flames (Maj. Sandbags, who usually makes his escape on these occasions, had to take his holidays earlier this year, so was not present). Meanwhile the defending fighters (" Bulldogs " of No. 54) were worrying the attackers, and casualties occurred on both sides—including one of the heavy bombers. Again the bombers came over, this time causing considerable damage, the heavy bombers finally blowing up the com- plete volume of the magazine. All the while, an Army Co-operation machine (an " Audax " of No. 13) was cruising around, probably taking movie-tone films of the attack for record purposes. And so home, with face and neck scorched and burning— from the sun, which attended the display from start to finish. • • —* The Static Exhibition Last year the exhibition of service equipment in one of the hangars proved so popular that it was decided to enlarge it this year. This exhibition afforded probably the best six-pennyworth of aeronautical education ever offered to the public. The centre of attraction was the stripped fuselage of a " Hart " day bomber with all its military equipment mounted. Points of interest were courteousiy explained. Bombs and bomb racks, a sectioned torpedo, and a variety of aircraft guns were there for close inspec- tion, and no less interesting was an array of navigational instruments. In fact, nearly every gadget connected with Service flying was on show. Farnborough exhibited a -i-nall " spinning tunnel," in which tiny models of well- known aeroplanes spin on a jet of air, and large scale wind tunnel models of such modern aircraft as the Blackburn fighter, A.W. 19, Gloster T.S.R. and Short R.24/31 fly- ing boat. Some of the firms who were exhibiting at the S.B.A.C. Dis- play on the following Monday showed actual examples of models of their more im- portant products. The sec- tioned radial engines, as always, proved most popular. Outside the hangar the Territorial Army held an ex- hibition of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and sound- locators. None of the equip- ment was of the latest pattern. THE ATTACK : A low-down " strafe " upon the Magazine by No. 13 (Army Co-operation) Squadron, while the balloon, forming part of the " apron," is brought down in flames. (FLIGHT Photoi) 674 ,i
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