FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1226.PDF
570 FLIGHT. MAY 23, i935. the pistons. When, an inlet valve stuck open, extremely impressive flames used to shoot back from the air in take ! Several rotaries followed the Gnome, such as the Le Rh6ne and the Clerget, but these had the inlet valves in the cylinder heads and ex ternal pipes leading to them from the crank case ; conse quently it was possible to throttle them, whereas the only control of the '' Gnome was the famous " Blip" switch. The so-called "static radial" engine, in spite of Anzani's early work, and that of other French de signers like R. E. Pelterie, was slow in materialising. The Salmson Canton-Unne was made in England just before and during the early part of the war, but did not survive for very long. One air-cooled radial, the Isaac son, appeared about 1913, but failed to. achieve any popularity. It was not until the kite war and early post war period that the type was revived by Mr. Bradshaw of the A.B.C. Engine Company, whose " Wasp " and " Dragonfly " engines (170 h.p. seven-cylinder and 320 h.p. nine-cylinder respectively) did a fair amount of flying. Mr. R. Fedden was another designer who believed in the radial, and he designed the early " Cosmos " engines which were later taken over by the Bristol company and have developed via the "Jupiter" into the "Pegasus" and "Mercury" engines of the present time. The Armstrong- The engine which made real flying possible : the 50 h.p. seven-cylinder Gnome rotary, which weighed but little more than 3 lb. per h.p. The inlet valves were in the piston heads and were automatic in action. (Flight photograph). Siddeley radials, which in clude a very extensive range, are all post-war productions. Our modern twelve-cylin der water-cooled vee engines may be said to be descended from some of the earliest engines used in aviation via the Rolls-Royce "Falcon" and " Eagle " types, the war time Wolseley-Hispano and the American • " Liberty." For a time, the "W" or " Broad Arrow" type of water-cooled was extremely populaT, the most famous example being the Napier "Lion " series. The relatively low-power air-cooled in-line engine had no counterpart in the early days, but is tremendously successful in modern times. In England the type may be said to have started with the '' Cirrus '' and developed via the '' Gipsy '' and "Hermes" into the latest Napier-Half ord types, the '' Rapier '' and '' Dagger, ' which are, in effect, four in line engines mounted on a common crank case. In view of the modern attempt to produce a steam- cooled engine it is worth recalling that the early Antoi nette engines of 1909-1910 or so were at least partly steam- cooled, the water in the cylinder jackets being permitted to turn into steam, which was then turned into water again by large condensers, usually mounted along the sides of the fuselage. They were eight-cylinder vee engines and weighed but 3.5 lb. /h.p. It is also interesting to note that they used direct fuel injection. C. M. P. CORRESPONDENCE The Editor does not hold himself responsible Joy the opinions expressed by correspondents. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters intended for publication in these columns SHOOTING THE 'CHUTIST [3043J Referring to your article on parachutes in war which appeared in last week's issue, it appears to me that the seriousness of the question is somewhat exaggerated. If the airmen jump over enemy territory, when they are certain to be made prisoners on reaching the ground, there is, as 3rou point out, no need to shoot them during their descent. However, if a pilot is forced to jump over his own territory obviously he will not open his parachute until the latest pos sible moment, say between 1,000 and 1,500 ft. No enemy pilot will risk descending to this altitude over enemy territory merely to finish oil the unfortunate occupants of a disabled aircraft, while it is also obvious that a human body falling through space under the influence of gravitv is no simple target for an enemy pilot to hit. J. S. WILKINSON. Edgware. [504-1] As one of the despised and rejected rationalists I must protest against the preposterous idea that anyone, whether hanging by an umbrella or hanging from an aero plane, should be "immune from attack." Your ideas are perfectly logical, hut do you not realise that sooner or later an airman of nation A would be shot while descending over nation B ?—quite by accident, of course. All people of nation A would then open fire on all enemy parachutists. Such is reprisal. Once broken, rules of warfare are broken for good. You will notice that no really useful rule is ever made. The Hague, for instance, might order all those who sign declara tions of war to commit suicide as an indication of confidence in its necessity What a lot of ingenuity would then be used in circumventing the circumstances that lead up to war! I delight in the art of bombing simply because it brings war up to the garden gates of the bow-fronted flag-waggers who would do anything to rule out the possibility of being messily damaged after dinner while *" the dear boys are out there.' The pacifistically inclined youngster of to-day is usually told that he has no backbone, yet he is the only person with the moral courage to be prepared to try a new method of ensuring peace. Most of us would rather risk extinction as truly civilised people than accept it as barbarians. Anyway, the little picture of a well-brought-up pilot weigh ing up his own inclinations and his duty to InX country, while watching his friend the enemy floating down, reminds me of a bunch of people forming a committee to decide what to do after the hotel has caught fire. It is, in fact, just another piece of control applied to the uncontrollable. Gravesend. TITUS GATES. NUTS TO CRACK.—No. 5. [3045J I am sure your correspondent "E. W. \V." [3°4°' will be amused at the procedure we adopted in order to per suade the inefficient airscrew to drag the heavily loaded air craft in question off the aerodrome: — (1) Four helpers would push the aircraft forward until n outran them. (2) For a few hundred yards the aircraft would rumble along with its tail held high at the best wing-drag angle. (3) The actual ' unstick " was timed to coincide with tne crossing of a ridge on the aerodrome which, generally, vv0U bump the aircraft oft" the ground. If that failed, we had t0 start all over again! London, W.C.2. N. CO-MP^K
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
