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Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1103.PDF
MAY 16, 1935. FLIGHT. The Outlooks A ?r Air Route Planning ALTHOUGH the Aerodrome Owners' Association has f\ received a reply from the Air Ministry concerning the suggestion that a national air route plan should be evolved, the position, for the time being at any rate, ap pears to be precisely as before. The Air Ministry, it is true, has taken over the survey which was originally as signed to the Aerodromes Advisory Board, but in the mean time the municipalities are advised to make up their own minds and to safeguard or to purchase prospective sites. Of course, the question of where and how air lines are operated remains one for the operators or prospective opera tors themselves; the Air Ministry can only advise and make rules to ensure their safety. Time after time one meets members of airport committees and the like who tear fully complain that " Little Pothunting has an air line, so why have we been left out? " and who propose to write a strong letter to the Air Ministry or to their own particular members of Parliament—just as if the Government is likely to run its own air lines for their benefit. Guiding the Private Owner TM TlTH the existing wavebands already so overcrowded, YY it appears to be fairly obvious that the private owner of the future will be actively discouraged from making use of any normal transmitting set. Already his requests take a very second place to those made by air line pilots while flying in thick weather. What, therefore, of the possibilities of producing for him a suitable version of the radio compass? With the aid of an instrument which will give him the direction of any transmitting station within range and within his wave length limits he can at least have very little excuse for being lost. Under such conditions, of course, his move ments will in any case be severely restricted, but it is unreasonable to suppose that he will be denied the use of any part of the sky. As it happens, such an instrument, weighing only about 30 lb., is at present being tested in America by Miss Ear- hart for the Bureau of Air Commerce. There, of course, a radio compass is likely to be a great deal more valuable than in this country. Bombing Psychology r HOUGHTS of air bombardment have recently been setting the nerves of all Europe on edge, and Britain is soon to follow the example of other nations in making preparations to safeguard the civil population, even though the probable danger is only from H.E. bombs which have missed military objectives. Consequently, the popular picture of the captain of the bomber aircraft is of a stern executioner who sits serenely aloft dropping his death-dealing missiles without fear or compunction. A truer picture would be that of a man who has forced his nervous system to overcome the terrors aroused by mani fold dangers. "Archies" have claimed few victims, but the effect on the nerves of a shell bursting near one's aeroplane is certainly disconcerting. The records of the Zeppelins show that commanders were sometimes only too glad to unload their bombs on any glimmer of light and then make for home. The psychology of the bomber pilot is also likely to be affected when the presence of bombs on his machine makes a great difference to its speed. In the case of the Northrop bomber, for example, where, owing to the adoption of multi-spars and a stressed skin, it is not possible to carry the bombs inside the streamline shape of the machine, the bomb racks alone knock some seven or eight miles an hour off the top speed, while the bombs themselves cause the loss of a good thirty miles an hour. If the crew of such a machine were to have a bad time from the defence, he would be a stout-hearted pilot who would not long for those extra thirty m.p.h. which would be his as soon as he had unloaded his bombs. To some men the temptation to decide that the ground (possibly open fields) below them was their allotted target would prove irresistible. Rudderless in America / T appears that the U.S. Bureau of Air Commerce is going all out to discover or to design a machine which really can be used with perfect safety and ease by the ordinary man or woman. Recently the Bureau has ordered three machines, details of which are given on page 541, one an Autogiro, one a conventional tvpe fitted with a modified car engine, and one an entirely unconventional type in which the idea of control simplification is to be thoroughly tested. Not only is this machine to be fitted with a " foolproof undercarriage, but it is to have no rudder and no elevators in the accepted sense of the terms. Special ailerons will control turns, and special flaps, interconnected with the throttle, will control the approach angle. In other words, two major controls will deal with the horizontal angle and the direction of flight. To the person brought up on the conventional type this conception may appear to be over-ambitious, but to the lay mind it is only logical—and the lay mind is likely to count: for more and more in the not-too-distant future. Certainly experiments on any new lines are worth following up, and we in this country hope that one or two recent develop ments will modify the general attitude towards private ownership. Fluttering in the Breeze r ROUBLES with fabric-covered wings in several modern high-speed types of aircraft inevitably bring up the question whether or not the covering material which has served us so well for more than twenty-five years can be counted upon to meet our needs of the near future. So long as speeds did not exceed about 150 m.p.h. there was little difficulty in getting a wing to maintain its shape with a doped fabric covering. On some early racing machines troubles were encountered, but these were over come fairly easily by improved stitching and by a closer spacing of the ribs. These remedies did the trick for quite a long time, and it is not until relatively recently that fabric troubles have again become important. It is, of course, quite obvious that one would not lightly discard a material which has stood the test of time so well as has doped fabric, and its advantages are many and well known. It is light, it is cheap, it is easily renewed, and it readilv affords inspection of the interior of a wing. But there does seem to be a possibility that when 250 m.p.h. or even 300 m.p.h. come to be accepted as quite ordinary speeds, our old friend doped fabric may have to give way to other materials unless means can be found for reinforcing it in some way which will enable it to withstand the high loads which arise from pressures concentrated locally on a wing.
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