FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1937
1937 - 0484.PDF
190 FLIGHT. FEBRUARY 25, 1937. Super'Cushioning LAST week I learnt something more about low-wing machines and, particularly, abcut the use of flaps in -i a high wind. The facts are not guaranteed, since coincidence may have played an unexpectedly big part, but they are at least worthy of attention—and pos sible destruction by the pens of those who know a good deal more about the theory than I do. On this occasion I was flying as a sort of active passenger in a low-wing machine while an approach was being made with the flaps fully down into a w-ind which was gusting up to 30 m.p.h. or so. Just as we were levelling off at a comparatively high air-speed the machine was urged upwards without noticeable control movement (and with out touching earth) to a matter of eight feet or so, whence descent was only made with the help of engine and a good deal of pump-handling. The impression I gained was that the normal low-wing cushioning effect was so exaggerated that the machine was, in fact, bounced back into the sky, and this idea appears to be borne out by my rule-of-thumb theory. Were it not for the fact that both a machine of the same make and another unflapped low-winger performed much the same evolution very shortly afterwards I should have blamed the effect of a sudden gust. The wind-strength was, niter all, of a Beaufort scale magnitude which equally prevented instruction and the removal of any lightly loaded biplane from its hangar. However, fortified by a good lunch, I went out after wards with the same machine and had a try myself. This time, however, I cautiously used the half-down position for the flaps (yes, it was a Miles Whitney Straight), and the result did not appear to cause heart-failure, either to the other occupant of the machine or to the watchers on the tarmac. The machine still had to be held down during the hold-off, and it flew again, at an altitude of one foot, after a finally stalled three-pointer, but the air-bounce effect was not at all marked. I can only suggest that we should be cautious in the use of flaps when the wind- speed exceeds 20 m.p.h. (graduation A PROPOS my remarks the other week about low-wing technique, I was recently told of some interesting training comparisons obtained at a club where both low- wing monoplanes and conventional training biplanes are used. The instructor in this case found that, generally speaking, pupils who had been taught on the monoplane— which, as it happens, is a particularly easy, foolproof, but. buoyant device—are passed off as safe on the biplane after less dual instruction than is necessary when the order is reversed. In other words, the man or "woman who had mastered the somewhat balloonatic technique required for the monoplane found the brick-like biplane to be easy gciug, while those who had become accustomed to the brick, and to a side-slipping approach technique, were somewhat out of their element when dealing with the monoplane. As a certain pupil once remarked, this machine flies as if its thick wing were full of a particularly light gas. All of which rather scuppers the argument of so many conservative instructors who claim that it is a mistake to teach people on a type which is easy to fly and without real vice. I am in favour of making the initial stages, when inferiority complexes so often cloud the pupil's mind, just as easy as possible. Later on, the sadistically inclined instructor can bring out his finest flying coffin in order to remove any sign of conceit in his more ambitious pupils. What should we say if the road licence testers insisted that all applicants should be tried out on a car with oval wheels and a pronounced tendency to make sudden dashes towards the nearest ditch? Or one which, when its speed was reduced below a certain figure, started to accelerate rapidly towards the nearest brick wall or other hard and uncom promising object? In fact, of course, nothing matters very much except the instructor. Given similar material, a good teacher will produce good pilots, while a poor or careless one will turn out proportionately more careless menaces. Club instructors who leave their more advanced pupils too much to their own devices please note. A little refresher dual does no one any harm. All Hands WHAT with flaps, wheel-brakes, flame-traps, v.p. air screws, and boost (or pseudo-boost) gauges, the pilot tven of the modern light aeroplane has a very great deal to look after. Consequently, control and instrument placing is becoming a matter of really paramount importance. On quite a few less complicated aeroplanes it is necessary to fly with either hand alternately, and I suggest that, where it is at all possible in the layout, every control which requires attention at more or less the same time should be placed on one side or the other. Only by such a planned arrangement will it be possible to remove the necessity tor a manual change-over at some critical moment during, o instance, the approach. This change-over may be unevent ful in itself, but is liable to upset things when a partici^ larly accurate approach is being attempted into a sma aerodrome or field. T u_ve In any case, the amateur pilot of to-day must, as 1 n said before in these comments, be ambidexterous. A a certain amount of necessary experience with my hand I feel fairly happy in the air, whether m n°™, flight or during the approach, but I am still hesitant au pulling off a landing in conditions which might den very accurate throttle work at the same time. I must some left-hand dual—practicing landing with motor on and off. INDICATOR.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
