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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 1565.PDF
JUNE 17, 1937. FLIGHT. 59i The Outlooks A R A Queer Story r HAT South Africa has been buying Hawker Harte- beestes for £200 apiece is the extraordinary allegation made in an article published in the May issue of our Australian contemporary Aircraft. The statement is to the effect that South Africa has purchased 100 Harte- beestes for £20,000, and the article goes on to complain that for the recently delivered Demons Australia has been paying more than she paid for the batch some years ago. There is good reason for believing that, although Ecuth Africa certainly did buy some British machines some time ago, the price quoted by our contemporary is incorrect. Moreover, it seems likely that the purchase referred to was one not of Hartebeestes but of surplus Harts, of which the British Air Ministry had a number for disposal. As regards the statement that Australia paid more for her recent Demons than for the first batch, the explana tion is quite possibly the very simple one that Australia wanted what was, in fact, a combination of Hart, Demon and Audax, and the fitting of bomb racks, hooks for pick ing up messages and so forth, naturally had to be paid for. The suggestion is made that as South Africa bought British aeroplanes for her commercial airlines last year, and Australia lifted the ban on foreign aircraft and decided to build American aeroplanes under licence, South Africa had to be "rewarded" and Australia had to be "punished." The journal admits that this "explan ation '' is merely guesswork being indulged in by Austra lians, and concludes by expressing the hope that the Air Ministry will make a clear statement. To us it appears that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with letting South Africa or any other member of the British Commonwealth of Nations have surplus air craft at a very low cost. The action injures no one and provides the means for much more extensive training and practice than could be obtained without these extra aero planes. That they are not of the latest types matters little for this purpose, and, presumably, Australia could, had she so wished, have bought surplus Harts at the same price as that paid by South Africa. Air Ambulances for Spain 5 TRONG protests against the ban on the export of air ambulances for use in the Spanish war were made by Mr. S. J. Noel-Brown at the first international con ference on aerial relief, held in Budapest this week. Mr. Noel-Brown argued that the official view that the Geneva Convention of 1929 is not recognised was illogical. The Spanish war is not an international one, and so officially the Convention does not apply, Article 18 being confined to international wars. If that were so, he contended, why were ground medical units allowed to operate there under the protection of the Red Cross, be they Spanish, French or British? The answer to Mr. Noel-Brown's query seems to be that the ground medical units cannot very well be converted into military units, but an air ambulance can, with rela tively little modification, be converted into a military aeroplane of sorts. It may not be of ultra-high perform ance, and it may be something of a makeshift, but it would, in certain cases, be a great deal better than no military aeroplane at all. While sympathising with Mr. Noel-Brown, it is difficult not to agree with the official view in this matter. If one side or other in Spain is badly in need of air ambulances, it is not a difficult matter to convert a civil or military it /epics machine. Logically it seems to follow that if no such con versions have been made, the reason must be that all available types are needed for military purposes to the exclusion of the charitable work of the ambulance, and conversely, if the military needs are so great, the tempta tion to commandeer an ambulance for conversion into a military type must also be great. Airships and Fire AS was to be expected, Capt. F. L. M. Boothby wel- f-\ comes, in a letter published elsewhere in this issue, Flight's interest in the airship question. " Expected," because Capt. Boothby is and has been for a great many years a staunch advocate of airships, of which he had much experience during and after the war. At the time a story was told, probably wholly untrue, to illustrate his enthu siasm. It was to the effect that when Boothby was trans ferred from one airship station to another he made the transfer of his personal effects by airship, the personal effects including a cow! The Lords of the Admiralty were said to have been severely displeased. Seriously, however, Capt. Boothby is well worth listen ing to when he gets on his hobby-horse. He mentions the use of inert gas between the hydrogen and the air. As mentioned in Flight some time ago, designs were originally got out by the Zeppelin Company for using double gas-bags, the inner bag containing hydrogen and the outer helium. The plan was dropped and, so far, there has been no.mention of it being revived, although America appears to have given Dr. Eckener an assurance that helium will be forthcoming for the L.Z.130 now being built at Friedrichshafen. If Dr. Eckener has abandoned the idea of the bi-gas arrangement, it is to be assumed that he has done so for technical reasons, since the cost of part-filling an airship with helium must be lower than that of filling it completely with this expensive gas. The loss of lift would be smaller if both gases were used than if the airship were completely filled with helium, unless the extra weight of the double gas bags was suffi cient to cancel the greater lift of the hydrogen. If some inert gas other than helium were used for fire protection the loss of lift might become serious. Dropping Supplies 7V TEXT week there will be held on Salisbury Plain an £ y Army exercise which will include practice in pro visioning an isolated military body by sending up supplies by aeroplane. This way of sending up supplies may prove invaluable in certain sorts of military operations, and it is a very good thing to practise it in peace time. As with most other military expedients, it has its limitations, and it is as well to recognise them in good time. By night there would be great difficulties in carrying it out, and by day the operation might become impracticable if enemy air craft were about. For one thing, the supply-dropping machines would draw attention to the position of the force, and, for another, enemy fighters might shoot the supply aircraft down. In fact, if the enemy had aircraft it would be most desirable for the supply machines to be escorted by fighters. The Army has no fighters, but the theory is that the Metropolitan Air Force would lend it some. That, in turn, presupposes that the Metropolitan Air Force would possess more fighter squadrons than it could make use of for the air defence of Great Britain. But will such a happy position ever be reached? DIARY OF FORTHCOMING EVENTS—PAGE 605.
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