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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 0142.PDF
FLIGHT. JANUARY 19, 1939 " Flight " photograph. T HE effect of heavily subsidised international com petition on the design of transport aeroplanes is very similar to that of a major war on the design of military types. To a less marked degree, but, nevertheless, noticeably, speed and performance generally tend to be given a higher place than safety. It will probably be true to say that the present ideas on transport performance reached a peak during 1938, and the operators—not to speak of the unfortunate passengers— have now seen the red light. For the next year or two it is unlikely that performances will improve to any great extent at the upper end of the speed-range and designers will concentrate, after a lapse of a year or two, on the more important point of safety—particularly safety in take-off. As one talks to airline passengers, whether lay or expert, it is becoming more and more obvious that they have had enough of sheer technical development and would often welcome a return to the old days when transport machines left the ground after a three-hundred yards run and climbed like a kite on a string. The modern type just plainly frightens them. Some of these aeroplanes take every bit of eight hundred yards to unstick, and thereafter the climb, until the undercarriage has been retracted, is ludicrously flat. For thirty seconds after the wheels have left the ground hardly one occupant of the machine could survive if an engine failed—and that is a state of affairs which should not be tolerated with any public transport devices in 1939. Subsidising Speed O N the whole, subsidies have done air transport a bad turn, though it is hard to see how this essential public service could have carried on without some form of assistance. If it had only been a matter of payment by results the result might not have been so bad, but, for the last few years, all the world's transport companies—with the possible exception of Imperial Airways, who have been largely trounced by their backwardness—have been un- economically competing with one another in the speed race; and there have been far too many accidents. This may be taking a somewhat pessimistic view of the entire situation, but one cannot help thinking that, left more to itself, air transport might have developed on far different lines. The fact that the flying machine can and will be an extremely useful and rapid means of transport has some times been overlooked by those who think of the air trans port industry only as a powerful item in the bulwark oi international "prestige." To point a moral, it is the old business of pride cropping up again, by which a man becomes so full of himself and so bristling with inventions that he proceeds to exterminate himself. Topics of the Day . . . by "Indicator'' THE PASSENGER is FRIGHTENED Part of the trouble is that most of us have a passion for mechanical things, and the present-day transport aeroplane really is the most beautiful piece of mechanism, in which thousands of essential items contribute towards its opera tion. Unfortunately, one new device has led to another, and all sorts of things like flaps, v.p. airscrews and retract able undercarriages have been used solely to increase the performance at the upper end, leaving the stalling speed, take-off run and climb rather worse than they were before. All the time, too, airline operators and pilots are trying to do just a little too much. As new radio facilities are provided, these are used not so much to make flying safer in weather conditions which were previously thought to be just possible, but to enable services to be run in weather which would simply not have been considered five years ago. One or two major accidents during the 1936-7 winter gave the operational departments of the different companies something to think about, and some of them realised then that they were attempting to run before they could walk. Nevertheless, it is an unfortunate streak of pride with a few pilots and operations departments to make a point of getting through while the others remain on the ground. This is all very well with mail-carrying services, but it is not good enough when passengers are aboard. With very careful training and steady practice in all conditions, it is possible nowadays to fly in practically anything. But sooner or later one item or another in the extensive equip ment (including the pilot's skill) breaks down and then there is nothing left on which to fall back. Radio equip ment does fail; ice layers cannot always be avoided ; and even fuel systems are not perfect. The Wrong Attitude ANYONE who has lived for a few hours in the control k cabin of a really up-to-date machine realises that the instrumental and control complications are more apparent than real. These are not the cause of the trouble. Such complications merely increase the time taken for pilots to be fully trained on the new type. One American company has said that the cost of training their pilots on a new fleet amounted to ten per cent, of the actual first cost of the equipment itself. So far not very much standardisation has been seen in control layouts and the effect of a change-over from one machine to another has been described by Mr. Ben. O. Howard, of United Air Lines, as similar to a rearrangement of the keyboard on a typewriter. Even if the new arrange ment is, in actual fact, an improvement on the old one, mistakes would be frequent during the first week of use. Neither has flying quite grown out of its heroic stage. The majority of transport pilots take their work very seriously, but it is inevitable that at least a section of the younger pilots should be recruited from a Service which, by its very nature, does not encourage a steady and cautious outlook. This must be demanded of those with responsibilities as heavy as are now being carried by the commanders of forty-seaters cruising at anything up to 200 m.p.h. in all weathers. As yet, flying still attracts the adventurous type who always tends to have a " that'11-be-all-right-you'll-find" attitude towards things in general. So long as air trans port remains even slightly more dangerous in comparison with other means of locomotion, this type will continue to be attracted. Until transport flying is universally looked upon as a serious and important career, things will remain as they are ; and until it shows a safety factor of the hundred-per-cent. order, it cannot be looked upon in that light. This is a vicious circle which must be broken.
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