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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 1268.PDF
FLIGHT. NOVEMBER 29, 1934. East Australia to about >]\ days. That is such a great advance that for the present everyone ought to be satis- fied, and captious critics should be hushed. The very excellent K.L.M. do not maintain that they could do much better than that, and just now the K.L.M. seem to have become the criterion by which our Eastern ser- vice is to be judged. We are proposing also to carry greater payloads than the aeroplanes used by the K.L.M. can carry. If that programme can be put into effect, and there is no reason why it should not be ful- filled, we shall have no reason to sing small. We do not regard this programme as the ultimate ideal. Probably there is no such thing as an ultimate ideal in air transport, for no one knows what technical improvements the future has in store for us. Taking present knowledge, however, a full development of night flying ought to cut down the 7^-day schedule very sub- stantially. Spot-welding DuraluminI N his article on metal construction as exemplified by the exhibits at the Paris Salon, published in our Aircraft Engineer Supplement this week, Mr. Marcus Langley draws attention to a spot-welding process which has been applied, apparently successfully, to joining two pieces of Duralumin sheet. Spot-welding of steel, and its variant, known as "shot-welding," have, of course, been used extensively for aircraft work, but so far it has not been found possible to utilise these processes for joining light alloy sheets. Mr. Langley is able to quote in his article certain figures of strength attained in the works of one of the French aircraft con- structors, and not merely in a laboratory, and from these it would appear that the process is promising. As Mr. Langley says, it is very much to be hoped that no unforeseen difficulties will arise when the process is faced with the acid test of practical usage. Its possi- bilities appear to be almost unlimited. The tendency is more and more towards metal-clad and metal mono- coque construction, and ordinary riveting is a somewhat • laborious, although mechanically very satisfactory, method of joining metal parts together. If the new spot-welding process survives the very searching tests which will be made during the next few months, it may well be found to accelerate very materially the general adoption of metal skin construction, not only for hulls and fuselages, but also for wings. Until large sizes are reached there is a good deal to be said for the use of light alloys in flying-boat hulls, and the cost of building them would be materially reduced if a welding process could be used with an assurance of reliability. ANCiENT HISTORY : An aerial view of Old Sarum, once the site of a populous cathedral city with a Normancastle. It was deserted many centuries ago In favour of the modern Salisbury. Nearby lies Old Sarum aerodrome, home of the R.A.F. School of Army Co-operation and of No. 16 (A.C.) Squadron. An article on the School appears on pages 1277-1280. (Flight Photo.)
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