FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1936
1936 - 1464.PDF
JUNE 4, 1936. FLIGHT. 599 Private Flyi Topics of the Day Puddle Hopping—I S OME months ago I heard that a well-known club was I seriously considering the possibilities and costs of a seaplane-flying extension to their activities. Nothing more was learnt about it, so I imagine that they may have shelved the idea for the present. I feel that if they modified one of their machines and gave the project a year's trial, even at very much higher flying rates, they would probably collect a very useful nucleus of interested people. For serious travelling, of course, a light floatplane is t not very much use, but the members might become suffi ciently numerous and enthusiastic to justify the purchase of an amphibian. No single member could afford to do much more than be "passed off" on it, but, thereafter, groups of them, with or without an instructor in charge, might care to hire it for a week or week-end and travel around the coast, landing at aerodromes or in sheltered water according to the different circumstances. Nobody who has travelled in a flying boat will ever for get the experience, and it is curious that those ex-boat pilots who are now flying transport landplanes usually look forward to the day when they will be back in a boat again, f know one who actually went abroad to another job as a landpiane pilot merely because he felt in his bones that his new company would be sure to operate flying boats in due course. Puddle Hopping—II IT was, I believe, the old American Loening amphibian which was originally and affectionately known as the "puddle hopper," but the name reminds me of another damp subject—leaking cabin aeroplanes. In this case one cannot hop, but must sit quietly in the puddles and bear the discomfort, if possible, with equanimity. After some first- and second-hand experiences during the Isle of Man race last week-end I am beginning to wonder whether there are many cabin machines into which water does not enter when the rain is really heavy. During the race it was very heavy indeed at times, but it is still difficult to excuse the fact that some water, at least, entered the majority of the machines taking part—and not all of it through the movable windows. It is easy, of course, to say that saloon cars are water proof and to forget that an aeroplane is travelling about three times as fast, but I would rather be dressed for the part in an open machine (and get really wet) than sit in a state of damply suspended animation within a machine which is supposed to allow me to travel comfortably in ordinary clothes. When somebody gives me an idea of the ; 'ctual pressure under which water may be forced through mmute cracks while travelling at 150 m.p.h., I shall prob ably apologise to constructors in general. Study in Airflow \J EVERTHELESS, it was interesting to watch the I ^ movements of a solid wall of water on and around the windscreen of a fast machine. One might have ex pected it to be pressed off in a clean sheet and to leave the screen itself in a state of smooth transparency. In fact, and in this particular machine, it was running in courses which might have interested an airflow expert. Incidentally, those people who think of air as they would of water in its movements around a vessel are liable to forget the one salient difference between the two mediums —the fact that of the two only air is compressible to measur able extent. Consequently, the effects of interference drag, for instance, must be almost impossible to theorise upon with any real accuracy. Aeronautical engineering, like every other form of en gineering, appears to depend largely upon plain rule-of- thumb knowledge and on practical tests with pieces of wool and sandbags. The history of rigid airships—outside Germany—gives the lie to any suggestion that things can always be calculated to a nicety. After a hundred years of experience with metal ships, even these break up on rare occasions. When Power is Necessary DURING this somewhat unexpected revival of the low-powered aeroplane, one is liable to forget an important though rarely met aspect of the use of a minimum supply of power. In really bad weather—other than very low cloud or fog, when no radio-less machine should be in the air, any way—it is sometimes necessary to fly extremely low, and it is possible that one day the ground ahead might rise faster than the machine's own rate of climb. The sudden appearance of another machine or some form of obstruc tion, too, might demand an equally sudden change of ver tical or horizontal direction of flight. A big reserve of either speed or power can be very useful in such cir cumstances. Alternatively, a low-powered machine should have excel lent slow-flying characteristics, so that an accidentally stalled or very slow-speed turn causes nothing worse than a mild loss of height on a level keel. The pilot who has done a great deal of flying in any particular " baby " would naturally do the right thing, but the inexperienced pilot might sling his machine around, depending for flying speed on any additional urge provided by full throttle. The advantages of a good take-off—in distance rather than time—are obvious to everyone. It is all very well to get into a small field, but one must also get out of it, and safe slow-speed manoeuvrability would allow the pilot to make a turn, if necessary, immediately after the take off. INDICATOR.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
