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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0748.PDF
MARCH 26, I936- FLIGHT. 3i9 The Outlooks A R\ G on /Ait topics Pardonable Pride A TOW that the Under-Secretary of State for Air has / Y told the nation that the Hawker monoplane does well over 300 m.p.h. and that a second fighter— patently the new Supermarine—is expected to reach at least the same speed ; now that it has been stated officially that the Fairey Battle medium bomber could get to the coast from Hayes in just over ten minutes ; and now that m the Armstrong-Whitworth Whitley we have a thoroughly up-to-date heavy bomber it becomes permissible for Flight to ruminate on the pronounced superiority of the latest British aeroplanes. Never before has this country possessed a finer crop of prototypes. It excels even that of 1929, when the Hart, Fox II, Fury, and Firefly caused such cigar-chewing and shoulder-shrugging. Whereas at that time the brilliance of our designers was apparent chiefly in single- and two- seater types, the superiority is now marked also in the multiengined class. Incidentally, since 1929 the speed of fighters and bombers has increased by no less than one- third. Sufficient Answer C RITICISMS—mainly from France—have been directed at the Hawker monoplane. It is being put into quan tity production for the R.A.F., and that should be sufficient answer. Whatever the shortcomings of the Hawker, it has been built, teated, and adopted, while France is still toying with some highly experimental aero planes, fitted in some cases with obsolescent engines, and while a whole batch of fighters has been turned down by the U.S. Army Air Corps because the performance of the machines did not show sufficient improvement over that attained by standard types. Such machines as the Battle, Wellesley, and mid-wing Bristol are all, so far as is known, head and shoulders above comparable types "abroad. The Whitley—precursor of a number of new heavy bombing types of advanced design—is as yet something of a dark horse, but doubtless, in its class, will perform to similar advantage. This type has been built in the light of experience gained with the Armstrong-Whitworth bomber-transport, and should prove considerably faster because of its smaller dimensions. The production Whitleys have been ordered " straight off the drawing board." At the moment we need a new two-seater fighter (the U.S. Army Air Corps has the fastest standard type) and more modernity, in certain respects, in the design of Fleet and marine aircraft. Doubtless the brains which have conceived such mag nificent machines as those already mentioned, and their equally if not more highly developed engines, will not A Tonic ANYONE who went to the lecture at the Students' See- I~\ tion of the Royal Aeronautical Society last Monday m +6?;PeCting to listen to something fairly elementary was'-Tl6 received something of a shock. The subject CL\V Mon°Plane Solution," and dealt with the tiire t' pa*ented win8 construction. In the main the lec- verv cnr °Ut t0 be a verv learned explanation of the have pl'cated stressing of such a wing, and one might fa eads oTrno^t tfh^lecturer's remarks to be right over the - most of the audience. Not a bit of it. The way in which many speakers tackled the lecturer during the discussion was perfectly joyous, and there was none of the mutual admiration society about the proceedings. The " striking claims " foreshadowed in the advance notice of the lecture did not materialise; in fact, the lec turer was rather taken to task for not explaining suffi ciently the advantages claimed for this particular type of wing construction. The very sound argument was advanced that a wing which could be more easily stressed might turn out lighter than one which required such very complicated stress calculations. If the youthful arguers were prone to carry their calcula tions to the ultimate decimal and somewhat overlook the fact that this is rather illogical while we start with rather doubtful assumptions in the first place, they may be for given. Their elders at the "real" R.Ae.S. lectures are sometimes not above reproach in this respect. The refresh ing thing about the discussion was that the young speakers, so far from accepting at its face value everything that had been said, quite obviously were capable of thinking for themselves and did not hesitate to criticise. The result was that, although the lecture might have been given a more appropriate title, it and the ensuing discussion were extremely informative. The youngsters of the Students' Sect ion of the R.Ae.S. will be the aircraft designers of to morrow, and they certainly seem to promise very well indeed. Floating " Archie " Batteries TlfHATEVER some of our old sea-lawyers may think YY of the offensive capabilities of the aeroplane against the warship, it is significant that two cruisers of the British Navy have been converted to specialised anti-air craft ships. They are the 4,290-ton Curlew and Coventry —29-knot \-essels—and their new armament is said to comprise batteries of anti-aircraft guns of the latest pat tern with appropriate modern high-angle fire-control systems. According to the Naval Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph their volume of fire is equivalent to that of an entire squadron of cruisers with standard high-angle armament. Our own thoughts, were we afloat in the neighbourhood of Curlew or Coventry with hostile aircraft about, would turn in the direction of tin hats. Putting Out the Light r HE ever-increasing tendency towards centralisation of electricity, water and gas supplies has raised some pretty problems for those responsible for organising air raid defence resources, and a scheme for the metro polis costing several million pounds is reported to be taking shape. The electricity grid, serving vast areas with current from a comparatively few giant generating stations, presents a big enough poser in itself. One suggestion is that manufacturing centres should have a stand-by system fed from underground diesel stations, which could be started up instantly in an emergency and economically maintained at other times. Even so, it seems to us that the overhead cables by which so many industrial districts receive their current are even more vulnerable than the power stations. The effect of a stray bomb in close proximity to a pylon can well be imagined. (And, incidentally, probably visualised with some satisfaction by everyday civil pilots.)
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