FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1000.PDF
472 FLIGHT. MAY 2, 1935. HERE AND THERE Mr. Katsutaro Ano, a Japanese pilot (right) is shortly to attempt to establish a flying record between England and Japan in his "Eagle " monoplane. (Flight photographs). Eastward Bound LAST Monday, at Hanworth, Madame Matsudaira, wife of the Japanese Ambassador in London, christened a B.A.M.C. " Eagle " which is shortly to be used on an attempt to establish a record for a flight from London to Tokio. The pilot will be Mr. Katsutaro Ano, who will be flying solo, all the extra available space in the cabin being taken up by petrol tanks. The route to be followed is London-Vienna-Belgrade- Istanbul, Baghdad - Karachi - Calcutta - Rangoon - Bangkok- Hanoi-Hong Kong-Taihoku-Shanghai-Osaka-Tokio. The total distance is approximately 10,000 miles. The engine fitted is a de Havilland " Gipsy Major " of 130 h.p. Except for the fitting of extra petrol tanks the machine is standard in every way. It is, of course, a product of the British Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd., which recently took over the whole of the business of the British Klemm Aeroplane Co., Ltd. The machine was christened Seikai, which means, we are informed, " Blue Seas" The christening ceremony very fit tingly took place on the birthday of the Emperor of Japan. The start is due to take place almost immediately. Flying—On Stage and Screen " Valkyrie," at the Westminster Theatre, is an unusual play and an interesting one, chiefly so for its setting in an aeroplane hangar. Christen Jul, a Dane, who is the author, evidently under stands the English character fairly thoroughly until he corner to the end of the play; then he gets a little unduly hysterical. The first parts are better than the last, which becomes almost hackneyed and closes with the inevitable crash of the hero— a crash which was obviously going to happen. The acting of Miss Joyce Bland will alone repay a visit to the play, while for the aeronautically learned there is pieasuit in the lack of technical errors. The stage setting is also better than one usually sees, and our readers will be glad to see that Mr. Torin Thatcher, as the young inventor, Michael Verner, has a copy of the latest issue of Flight on his desk. "Anyone," as Robert Young puts it in "West Point of the Air," a film now showing at the Empire, Leicester Square. London, " can become a dumb aviator." Of course, he was merely consoling a fellow officer of the U.S. Army who, in piling up a Consolidated Trainer to avoid killing Young and his lady friend, had lost half a leg. The film shows how these '' dumb aviators'' are made It deals with the work of the training centre at Randolph Field, Texas, where young officers, fresh from West Point, are purged of their dumbness and taught to fly. There is a slinky vamp, a Nice Girl, and a contingent of square-jawed, clean-limbed young officers. But there is too little flying. Probably the best shots are those of a civil Lockheed "Vega" which shoots-up Randolph Field and behaves in a thoroughly uncivil manner. Crashes, of course, are sprinkled liberally throughout the (Continued overleaf.) NUTS TO CRACK—No. 5 Another Practical Problem Set by Fit. Lt. Nicholas Camper. The Solution will be Found on Page 4J~ TN one oi the light aeroplane trials a slow-flying test •»• required the pilot to fly across the aerodrome from mark to mark at a height lower than 50 ft., first in a down-wind direction and secondly up-wind. Points were given for the slowest flying times recorded. I was flying a biplane of very light wing loading (about 5 lb./sq. ft.), while the power loading was over 30 lb./h.p.; the engine r.p.m. on the ground were 2,900 and about 3,000 when climbing full throttle. With such a power loading the take-ofl was difficult, but once in the air the light wing loading gave the aeroplane a buoyancy very similar to that which one experiences in a glider. I approached the slow -speed course on a very slow glide, down-wind as required, and crossed the starting • point at a height of about 20 ft. Deliberately I was very close to the stall and, as the aeroplane started to sink, I opened the throttle a little bit in order to main tain height. I was still sinking, and to avoid disquali fication by touching my wheels on the ground I gave full throttle The engine" responded immediately, but, to my astonishment, I could not regain any altitude. The aerodrome sloped downhill, and I found myself travelling down wind on a stalled glide, although my engine was giving a full 3,000 r.p.m. I passed the finishing post, and there was a hedge in front of me. I might have tried a down-wind landing if there had been any aerodrome left; but ahead of me were hay stacks. These I managed to miss, and downhill and down-wind I carried on, with my engine screaming away, until in front of me came a row of telegraph poles. Being still completely stalled, there seemed no chance of jumping the wires, so I had to go under them. Then ahead of me I saw fifty yards of green grass, on to which I pancaked after shutting everything off. As sometimes happens in the worst of emergencies, nothing was broken. Running up my engine on the ground proved it to be in perfect order, so, after jettisonning some of my competition load, I took off and returned to the aerodrome. What puzzled me was that, although I had ap proached the starting point very close to the stall, with my tail between my legs, so to speak, the use of full engine had no effect at all between that time and i,lv final pancake on to the ground: Whv was this so?
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
