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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 0932.PDF
MARCH 30, 1939 FLIGHT. America's present standard observation (army co-operation) type is the Cyclone- engined North American 0-47. There are windows in the bottom of the fuselage. Italy's Meridoinali Ro.37-bis is a recon naissance type usually fitted with a Piaggio engine. There are sliding observation windows in the sides of the fuselage. panelled " belly " under the fuselage to accom modate the observer. Due to the wing position it is fairly easy to retract the wheels. It is not, perhaps, generally known that a machine built to the same basic layout, though lacking the portliness of the North American, has been flying for many months in this country. Details are withheld at the request of the manufacturers. Typically, army co-operation aircraft are fitted with a medium-supercharged engine to give optimum performance at 6,000ft. above sea' level. Present practice favours the radial, due to its comparative simplicity of main tenance in the field. Certainly the present stan dard single-engined A.C. types of the world are generally simpler than fighters and bombers, not only in their basic structure and equipment, but in their retention of the fixed undercarriage, and in some cases the fixed-pitch wooden airscrew, though the North American machine already mentioned is a perfect example of elaborate metallic modernity. A return to the biplane was essayed by Caproni with the Ca.134, which had a very powerful liquid-cooled engine, a biplane tail (!) and the typical Italian sliding windows in the side of the fuselage for the use of the observer. The Italians, in actual warfare, have achieved considerable success with the Meridionali R0.37 biplane with either radial or liquid-cooled engine. This model is characterised by very sturdy design, and also embodies the sliding observation windows. Comparative simplicity is to be found not only in the single-engined army co-operation types already discussed, but in the Continental avions de travaille—twin-engined multi-purpose types capable of acting as army co-operation machines or of functioning as advanced trainers. Crudity might almost be a better description, particularly for the Hanriot N.C.510 with its angular observation car built out from the bottom of the fuselage, its large diameter single-row radials of dated design (Gnome Rh6ne 9 Ksr), its fixed undercarriage and its primitive tail skid. As shown at Paris last year, the type has been extensively cleaned up and a pair of the reportedly sensitive high- revving small-diameter Gnome Rhone 14 M engines had been installed, giving a stated top speed of 218 m.p.h. Fourteen hundred horse power seems a lot even for a three-seater equipped for day and night reconnaissance, day and night flying training, instruction in navigation, bombing, and presumably for general crew training. For observation work the crew consists of the chef de bord, who may also act as second pilot or observer, navigator, .sdmSMKf" navigator-radio operator or observer, and a machine gunner who can also work the wireless. Construction is composite, and armament comprises one fixed and one free machine gun. One might have thought that the duties mentioned could have been discharged almost equally well by a machine of the calibre of the Airspeed Oxford or the Avro Anson. Nevertheless, the Potez 56, a machine more or less of Oxford layout, but with only 480 h.p., was adapted as an avion de travaille, but does not appear to have been put into production. The Czechs seem to favour machines like the Letov S.50 and an Avia model to the same formula. Such a machine as the Hanriot might, of course, be miP- it*- " Flight " photograph. The '' long-nosed '' version of the Bristol Blenheim (above) has much to recommend it as a long-distance strategical reconnaissance type. A French avion de travaille—the Hanriot N.C.510 —which may be used for day and night recon naissance or advanced training. The observer's position is beneath the fuselage.
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