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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0711.PDF
d * FLIGHT. MARCH 19, 1936. Private Topics of the Day Complications Bigger Fry ONLY a week ago a pilot with a not unreasonable amount of light aeroplane experience was complain ing that aeroplanes were becoming too complicated. Why, he said, did the designers add fearful con traptions like air brakes or flaps and retractable landing gear or even one new and relatively unnecessary instru ment? He, personally, had quite enough to look after in the old-fashioned light aeroplane. The facts he overlooked were that the '' complications did not really complicate so much as simplify flying and that every mechanical contrivance gradually grows more refinements as the years go on. Compare cars to-day with the cars of the early (but not too early) days? Even the bicycle has grown an additional brake, a free-wheel and a multi-speed hub since the safety machine was first pro duced. No doubt the hard-boiled riders of the penny- farthing viewed the first chain-driven safety bicycle with considerable misgiving. I am all in favour of additional devices if these add to the safety or ultimate simplicity of the flying business. One lever more or less makes precious little difference once a pilot's initial conservatism has been overruled. And the drivers of the most up-to-date vehicle in the world, the flying machine, are often positive Colonel Blimps among the diehards. Introduce one new lever or one new instrument, and the bars echo with the criticisms of the childlike veterans. How often have transport pilots raised their eyebrows in horror after listening to my far-from-concise explanation of the Lorenz approach system? "When," they say so often, "I can see a picture of the airport on my dashboard—then will I fly in conditions of zero visi bility." . . . and Comparisons EVEN if we agree that there are a number of levers to move and dials to watch, can we honestly say that even a modern luxury aeroplane is more complicated than a car? Yet half-wits, even in modern road conditions, rarely move the wrong lever and can teach themselves to make that most complicated hand and foot movement —the double de-clutch action—while wriggling between rows of fast-moving cars. Disregarding the instruments, my own car, which is not very modern, has ten different controls, three of which are used only at the start of a journey. On a modern light aeroplane which I was flying recently I also counted ten controls, but of these only five are used in normal flight. It requires less mental effort to " place " the tail-trimming lever, for instance, than to remember the gear positions with a strange car. ON one occasion I spent three hours in the control cabin of a really up-to-date transport aeroplane which was fitted with every aeronautical gadget known to man— from flap gear to fuel dumping valves. During the first half-hour I was staggered by the array of devices, yet at the end of three hours I could remember the position of every lever or instrument and knew that, apart, perhaps, from the take-off and landing, I could have flown the machine to its destination without making any mistakes. I originally learnt on an aeroplane with a stick, a rudder bar, a throttle, and a tail-trimming lever which I never used. A year or two later I graduated to an aeroplane with four or five more controls, looked fearfully round the cockpit, took off, and discovered that it was very easy after all. One of the " controls " was a seat-raising lever. I applied the brakes with it once and once only. Two years later I felt a seat projection instead of the brake lever on another aeroplane and " took off " with the brakes hard on—luckily without trouble. Since then I have usually opened up with the stick back—just in case there is some obstruction in front of the wheels. Of course, it makes a great deal of difference how the controls are placed, and some approach to standardisa tion would tend to make things easier. Using Them A LL. these devices, of course, should be used. One lesson which I have learnt (I hope) from odd hours in the second pilots' seats of really big machines is to fly as far as possible on the trimming gear. Why should one hold a load on the stick when a perfectly good trimming wheel or lever has been bought and, presumably, paid for? The landing is so very much easier if the fore-and- aft trim has been set to a nice, smooth hands-off glide. Some people tend to use their air brakes or flaps as a last-minute substitute for the perennial side-slip. That system, though not without its merits, does not allow om to use the brakes as a rumbling device, and it is very pleasant to think that one has the ability to stretch the glide if necessary. I never believe that my engine will pick up at once, since on two occasions it has made a laughing sound and momentarily died on me. The psycho-analysts will have no difficulty in explaining a love of efficient fiappery and a tendency to over- rather than to under-shoot. Motor-conscious transport pilots of clean aeroplanes with a pronounced sink at low gliding speeds—always give me a nasty ten seconds as they lift their machines off the tree-tops with a subtle throttle-hand on the way into an airport. INDICATOR.
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