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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0579.PDF
MARCH 3, 1938. FLIGHT. 201 PRIVATE FLYING THE NEW FAIRCHILD : One of thefirst — if not the first — private machines to land at the new St.Moritz landing ground was a Fair- child 24 brought over by HerrKronfeld. The 1938 version of this machine, for which M. AntoineGazda is offering concessions in this country, is a full four-seater withample luggage accommodation. Topics of the Day N Just Details OWADAYS we have not so very much to complain about in the matter of aircraft fittings and furnish- ings, though they are, nevertheless, quite often inferior to those of the most inexpensive cars. It is not many years since we were accustomed to the idea of sitting on an extremely hard cushion inside a curiously shaped little tub surrounded by very bare pieces of wood and equally bare pieces of wire, and with a few oddly dis- posed instruments ready to butt one on the chin after the slightest impact against the ground. Only one's head, sticking ridiculously out of a hole cut in the top of the fuselage, remained in comparatively civilised surroundings. Except in the case of very small and very inexpensive aeroplanes, or those used exclusively for training, all that is now a thing of the past. But let it be said that control levers are still such that ungloved hands may be abraded and, in some cases, such that, following the exercise of a special muscular effort, they come off in one's hand. This, of course, does not apply to more or less essential controls such as joy-sticks, but only to occasionally used, but never- theless essential, controls such as brake levers. At the same time many of these less essential controls are often placed in the most unreasonably awkward positions, and it is too easy 011 some machines to grab a handful of brake or flap lever in place of the throttle. Most awkward of all can be the arrangement of the rudder pedal. This can sometimes be operated only with the instep and may not be fitted with any particularly simple form of adjustment. For long-period flying it is actually easier to hold the rudder one way or the other with the pedal beneath the instep and with the legs more or less rigid, but for delicate control on or in the vicinity of an aerodrome only ankJe movement can do the job properly, and ankle movement is only possible when the rudder pedals lie against the balls of the feet. Some machines, notably those of American origin, have brake pedals which are but a few inches above or below the rudder pedals, and it is necessary to slip the foot from one to the other during taxi-ing and to be extremely careful not to allow this slip to occur during the take-off or landing. Some brake arrangements of this kind can give the pilot quite violent pains in his legs during a long practice period of concentrated take-offs and landings. In my opinion, at any rate, the brake-pedal idea—save for machines wherein tke rudder is dispensed with—is an altogether wrong and dangerous principle, since the brakes are only used for a snort time while on the ground, and must then be used with special accuracy. Vital Adjustment . . . IM Y most urgent personal demand in such matters is that for a fully and immediately adjustable seat. Anyone *no has flown in a trainer or Service type with such a device will appreciate its tremendous advantages. While taxiing, taking off, landing or making a circuit of a busy aerodrome, a pull on the lever raises the seat to such an extent that a really useful view of the surrounding air or ground may be obtained, while during a long and perhaps cold cross- country flight the seat can be lowered so that one is entirely protected and is, in fact, more or less inside the fuselage. For cabin machines such a device is not always neces- sary and is certainly not always considered necessary by designers. Sometimes, too, the clearance between the top of one's head and the roof or some constructional member is not sufficiently large to make any adjustment worth- while. Nevertheless, there are moments, particularly where side-by-side seater machines are concerned, when it is ab- solutely essential to raise oneself up athletically with the help of the stick and the rudder bar in order to see whether or not some stationary or mobile obstruction is looming up on the offside. The need for instantaneous seat adjustment in cabin machines has really only appeared since the side-by-side seating arrangement became so popular. The pilot's view in such machines as the Puss Moth, Leopard Moth and Desoutter was above reproach, and the same may be said of at least one side-by-side seater in which the head room is ample and the seat, consequently, high in relation to the top of the engine cowling. Needless to say, the introduc- tion of the inverted type of engine has made a tremendous difference to the matter of view, but we are in the way of losing this advantage in an endeavour to clean up the fuse- lage shape. . . . and Vital View W/ HILE on the subject of visibility—dealt with on •*» numerous^occasions in these commgnts—it is worth stressing the obvious fact that the whole subject is mixed up primarily with the idea of a standardised field of view rather than with any particularly good one. In other words, every machine, however good it may be in this respect, must necessarily have blind spots, and the only possibility of absolute safety lies in the standardisation of these spots. From this angle, at any rate, it is fortunate that designers tend to imitate one another—or at least to follow a lead which has proved itself to be more satisfactory than others. At present the cantilever low-wing type may be said to be in vogue, and this type provides in all cases an almost identical field of useful visibility for the pilot. The differences, in fact, between one example and another are not by any means as great as those which were, and are, experienced in the case of the once conventional tractor biplane. The advent of the pusher type may change the situation, but not so markedly as to be dangerous, since the pusher merely provides better forward visibility, with much' the same range downwards and upwards and none at all
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