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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 2441.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER AND AIRSHIPS Fmsr AERONAUTICATWEEKLY IN THE^WOPLD .• FOUNDED 1909 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET Telegrams : Truditur, S.dist, London. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2 Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971. 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Home and Canada: Other Countries: Year, SI 13 0. Year, £1 16 0. HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telephone Waterloo 333 j (50 inw 260. DEANSGATE. MANCHESTER, 3 Telegrams: Ilifie, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. '26B, SEN FIELD ST. GLASGOW, CS. Telegrams: Ilifle, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. (J months, I63. Gd. 6 months, 18s. 0 !. 3 months, 9a. 6d. 3 mouths, 9s. Od. No. 1549. Vol. XXXIV. SEPTEMBER 1, 1938. Thursdays, Price 6d. The Outlooks The " Royal and Ancient " T HERE was a time when it was the fashion in some quarters to refer to the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain as " The Mutual Admiration Society." The sneer was partly deserved. In those days che authors of nearly all the papers read before the Society were either Air Ministry officials, technical people from Farnborough, or research workers from the N.P.L. The ' discussions " were composed largely of flattering remarks by representatives of one of these sections about representa tives of one of the other sections. Criticism of the papers there rarely was, and any attempt to point out that all was not quite as rosy as it was painted was usually frustrated in a most effective, but of course perfectly amiable manner. That was long ago. Dissatisfaction led to the establish ment of a '-'rival " body, the Institution of Aeronautical Engineers, and so great was the nuisance value created by the new body that in time it became necessary to do some thing about it. The result was an amalgamation of the two bodies under the short and snappy title, " The Royal Aeronautical Society with which is incorporated the Insti tution of Aeronautical Engineers." On the whole, the amalgamation has been beneficial, and there has been a marked improvement in the papers read before the Society. The academic atmosphere which previously pervaded the meetings gave place to one in closer touch with realities, lecturers were drawn from the industry, and the discussions became at times quite outspoken criticisms. How it has come about no one seems to know, but old ideas die hard and it may be for this reason that the R.Ae.S. is still in the minds of the many the '' Royal and Ancient'' rather than the powerful force of advanced technical opinion which the Society's membership could and should make it. Be that as it may, we are glad to welcome in our Corres pondence page this week a letter from Mr. W. O. Manning, himself an ex-member of the Council of the Society, in which he calls attention to the strange absence of R.Ae.S. Members from various important committees and public bodies. We feel that this state of affairs has come about through thoughtlessness, and that it will be remedied once attention has been called to its existence. Why? D URING the last few years Flight has criticised, at fairly frequent intervals, the dilatoriness of the Air Ministry in issuing its reports on civil flying acci dents. Fifteen years ago there was some reason for not saying too much about the causes of flying accidents. Often enough the causes themselves were rather obscure; frequently all on board lost their lives and it was difficult to establish reasonable proof of the sequence of events; engines were unreliable and ground organisation in the form of radio and meteorology non-existent; and there was always a very good chance that the manufacturers of aircraft and engines would be unjustly blamed. Nowadays, however, flying accidents are fortunately rare in. comparison with the. number of passenger-miles flown, although frequent enough merely in point of time. Mechanical failure is a very infrequent occurrence, and the most common initial cause of modern accidents are weather conditions which would have been regarded a few years ago as quite impossible. Occasionally an error of judgment is responsible. In these circumstances there is no valid reason for delay in issuing reports on accidents. Bearing all these things in mind, one would have ex pected that the official report on the accident to the Empire flying boat Cygnns, which took place in Brindisi Harbour on December 5, 1937, would have been issued long ago. The steward and one passenger were killed and the radio operator and five passengers were injured, but the pilots were unhurt and could give their version of what happened. Thus, there does not appear to be any very good reason why it should have taken more than eight months to issue a report which, when its circumlocutory phraseology is translated into simple language, merely means that there was no structural failure, the boat was not overloaded, but the instructions of the chief pilot to the second pilot about lowering the flaps were misunderstood and the flaps were fully lowered for the take-off, resulting in the boat porpoising. A repetition is not likely to occur; the pilots have had an experience which is of use to themselves and to all other pilots of Empire boats ; no one's reputation was involved ; so why the long delay ? The cause was known at once.
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