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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 1448.PDF
JUNE 4, 1936. FLIGHT. 59i The Outlooks A Running Commentary on Ait Topics Getting a Move On F OREIGN nations which have been inclined to treat Britain as fangless and toothless because we have let our armaments decline in recent years cannot fail to be impressed by the energy with which the problem of aircraft production is being tackled by the Government. Last Friday Sir Thomas Inskip in the House of Commons and Lord Swinton at the annual dinner of the Oxford University Air Squadron both spoke of the great aircraft factory which the Austin firm is about to build —the greatest aircraft factory ever built in this country, as Lord Swinton described it. It will be built at Cofton Hackett, beside the Austin works at Longbridge, at a cost of nearly ^1,000,000, and will be able to employ over 5,000 workpeople. At the same time, seven firms, Austin, Rootes, Daimler, Standard, Rover, Singer and Wolseley, have formed themselves into what Lord Swinton called a team to organise among themselves the production of aero engines. Lord Swinton said that he was not fond of State factories; the trade knew more about produc tion than he could possibly know. This team, Sir Thomas explained, had already put forward a cut-and-dried scheme for securing the necessary output w^th the mini mum of delay. Sir Thomas uttered a somewhat ominous note in explaining what delay was likely to be inevitable, namely, the getting of the raw material and the men. This difficulty of finding skilled workers is the most tragic outcome of the disarming and cheese-paring policy of recent years. The skilled workmen have been dissi pated, some among other trades, while some, perhaps, have gone on the dole and forgotten part of their experi ence and skill. The delay in getting together a full com plement of skilled workers is, perhaps, the most serious feature of the present situation; but with the energy now being shown by the Government and by the industry, that delay will certainly be cut down to the absolute minimum. The " Pon " Position / N view of the fact that two more Pou-du-Ciel crashes (one in this country, one in France, and both fatal) have occurred since we commented on the subject a fortnight ago, it is with considerable misgiving that we learn of the Air Ministry's refusal to test the Pou in the full-scale wind tunnel at Farnborough. As Flight has already said, there are certain aspects of the Pou principle, notably that of a dangerous slot effect which may occur when the wing-gap is too small and the angle of incidence excessive, which cannot be cleared up by theoretical calculations ; nor,, for obvious reasons, can it "be investigated in flight. The full-scale wind tunnel 13 the only remaining avenue. Presumably one of the Ministry's reasons for refusing the test is that Farnborough already has its hands full with military aircraft work. Another reason, given by the Air Minister in answer to a question in Parliament, is that a test would be of little value, since most Poux show greater or lesser departures from the laws of Mignet. The retort to this seems to be that Farnborough should test a "strictly Mignet " model. Assuming that everything was found O.K., the Ministry could then announce that any PoH-builder who departed from the standard specification did so at his peril. Of course, the.question of engine varieties (and conse quent changes of C.G. position) would prove a complica- bon, and we should also have to face the problem of what to do in the event of Farnborough reporting adversely. Presumably the Air League, which has "fathered" the Pou in this country, and which has bsen most insistent in calling for an investigation of the acci dents, would have a machine modified again and again until satisfaction was obtained. We do not envy Air Comdre. Chamier his task. Safety First / T might be amusing, if it were not so serious a matter, to realise that even in 1936 transport pilots do not always run up their engines and test their magnetos before opening up for the take-off. These engines have certainly been tested earlier in the day, and, in the case of a light aeroplane using the whole length of a big aero drome, such a precaution might not always be vitally necessary. Transport machines, however, are sometimes fully loaded, and in this state their take-off is sufficiently pro longed to make engine failure, or even loss of power, at the moment that the machine is air-borne a particularly serious matter. The pilot may then need to choose be tween various fatally solid objects—with a corresponding fall in the barometer of public enthusiasm for air travel. Habit, of course, tends to make the best of pilots over confident, particularly now that engine trouble is so rarely encountered, but this public enthusiasm is too important to be thrown away by momentary carelessness. When travelling about the country one is more and more struck by the increasing interest in and knowledge of air transport Gratifyingly sound opinions, on such matters as relative flying comfort, are heard in scraps of conversation between very unlikely persons and in un expected places: A vear of safe air transport, in this country and abroad, should "clinch the deal." Going West r HE combination between Short Bros, and Harland and Wolff to build flying boats on Belfast Lough is the first step in two interesting new developments. In the .first place, the Thames estuary and the Medway are tempting targets for enemy bombers, if any should ever come across. Should that disastrous day ever arrive, and the Rochester works go up in a grand pyrotechnic display, the Singapores and their successors can continue to come smilingly out of the Belfast sheds. It is to be hoped that Mr. Gouge (not to mention other friends) will previously have been transferred to the realm of the Six Counties. We are sometimes told that with the increasing range of bombers soon no part of the British Isles will be immune from visits. . That may be true, but the risks of the bombers are very much increased when they have to cross large stretches of land instead of merely popping unheralded across the Channel. The long overland flight gives the defence a fair chance of interception. The second noteworthy point is the indication of the interest which the shipping world is developing in flying boats. There is not very much in common between building a giant Cunarder and constructing a Singapore III, and all the work on the thin sheets of Alclad, stainless steel, and suchlike metals will have to be done by the aircraft builders, not by the shipbuilders. Still, it is significant to see the two crafts which make boats drawing together, and perhaps in the long run both may benefit from the association.
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