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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0067.PDF
JANUARY 9, i936- FLIGHT. 3i The Outlooks A Running' Commentary on Ait Topics Blind Flying First D URING the past year or so, since instrument flying has become part of the curriculum of all the more important clubs and schools, enquiries have revealed the fact that the pilot with a comparatively small flying experience usually learns to fly by instruments in a shorter time than that taken by the old hand. So it was that a contributor suggested in Flight of October 17th that a person who had never flown at all might logically be expected to master the technique in an even shorter time. In this week's issue the chief instructor of the Royal Danish Naval Air Service School enlarges on his experiences at the only training school in the world, so far as we know, where the ab initio pilot, after a few hours of passenger flying, is given all his preliminary train ing under the hood. His remarks are, to say the least of it, extremely interesting, and the method opens up a complete vista of possibilities. Training for Transport Work 117" HILE amateur and Service pilots will continue to YY find that horizon-flying methods are the most use ful, the transport pilot will find, year by year, that his instrument-flying ability is his most important one. Furthermore, when approaching or landing in conditions of zero visibility, his attention will necessarily be divided between his blind-flying instruments and his radio-approach dials. His reactions to the instruments must be just as automatic as they are when he has an outer world by which to fly. We suggest, therefore, that, if and when the majority of transport pilots are actually trained ab initio for com mercial work, the obvious course would be to place them under the hood at the very start of their flying life. Then the world will see a new generation of pilots who are com pletely fitted to face the particular problems of day-in and day-out air-line operation. To-morrow the transport pilot I will be an "instrumental scientist" rather than a mere I pilot. That Third Control / NVENTORS continue to worry their brains with the problem of reducing to two the number of flying con trols which the beginner has to operate when learning J handle an aeroplane. M. Mignet takes the bull by : the horns in his Poll and omits the ailerons altogether. I There are, however, times when direct lateral control is ;desirable, particularly during take-off and landing; and in any case ailerons cannot safely be omitted in machines of large span and high efficiency. In this issue will be found a description of a system of automatic stability invented by an Argentine engineer resident in France. The Bemberg system, as it is called, is admittedly somewhat crude in its present form, but there does not appear to be any reason for thinking that : cannot be improved, and already the experimental con trol has been declared by pilots to work very well on a Moth. Briefly explained, the system involves connecting two tcial '' kites to a system of crank levers in such a way that differential operation, very similar in general nciple to the familiar differential aileron control, results <rom a lateral tilt of the machine. h ,™am objection to the system appears to be that kites " always flv at the same angle of incidence, fever the aeroplane" itself is doing, their lift, and consequently the force exerted on the lateral control, varies as the square of the air speed. That obviously means that at top speed or cruising speed the force required on the joy stick, if the pilot wishes to overcome the automatic control, is likely to be considerable. On the other hand, it is usually during a landing that manual control may be desired, such as for a sideslip, and the force exerted by the "kites " is then a good deal smaller. However, the Bemberg system is an interesting experi ment, and may lead to something practical. " Double '' Engines A REPORT from France that the Hispano company ^1 is working on an engine group or pair of 2,000 h.p. is of great interest at the present time, when the tendency is all towards the twin-engined and very large four-engined machine. It is said that the Latecoere company is designing a flying boat of 80 metric tons weight (176,000 lb.), and that the French air ministry is offering a large prize for the best solution of the problem of engine groups. It is believed that the Hispano project includes two type 12 Y engines placed end to end and driving co-axial airscrews running in opposite directions. Presumably the drive will be arranged somewhat like that of the Fiat Schneider engine group. In its last annual report (reviewed in Flight of Novem ber 14, 1935) the Aeronautical Research Committee stated that British technicians had come to the conclusion that there was no mechanical impossibility in building a 200-ton flying boat, but that the effect of six or eight airscrews along the leading edge required investigation, and also the mechanical details of putting something like 5,000 h.p. into a single shaft. Apparently the French Service Technique has realised the importance of these problems and is doing something to get them solved straight away. It may perhaps be recollected that at one of the first Paris aero shows after the war, Louis Breguet exhibited a four-engine group, known as the Breguet-Bugatti. At the time there was probably little need for such a group, as there were- no aircraft into which it could usefully be installed. Nowa days, however, conditions have changed and the problem of co-axial airscrews running in opposite directions seems to merit careful study. There is no immediate use for groups in which 5,000 h.p. have to be put into a single shaft, but there are several applications, civil and military, of power groups or pairs of 2,000 h.p. or so. Tapered Wings LAST week attention was called, on this page, to Dr. f Lachmann's article on the stalling of tapered wings, and the view was expressed that tapered wings might not be quite as black as Dr. Lachmann had painted them. Agreement with this view is expressed in an article, re ceived just as we are about to go to press with this week's issue of Flight, by Mr. W. R. Andrews, of the Avro technical staff. Mr. Andrews' article, which we shall be publishing shortly, is a defence of the tapered wing in so far as it points out that Dr. Lachmann's argument must be based upon a tapered wing having the same aerofoil section along its span, or, in other words, a wing having constant thick ness-chord ratio. By adopting the more usual procedure of employing a straight taper, the aerofoil section changes from root to tip, and Mr. Andrews claims that it is then possible to obtain stalling at the centre first and at the tips afterwards, as in a rectangular wing.
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