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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0870.PDF
268 MARCH 21, 1940 COMMERCIAL NEWS from AUSTRALIA ,500,000 . for Civil Aviation THERE is good news about civil aviation in Australia—the Government have agreed to devote to its de-velopment during 1940 the sum of £1,500,000. This is a considerable sum for a country of 7,000,000 people, and is greater in proportion than the proposed subsidy of £4,000,000 per year which the internal and oversea services in this country got just a glimpse of before the war came and it was hastily repocketed. The £1,500,000 which Australia will spend is exclusive of that money to be paid tc the civil aero clubs for the instruc- tion they will do for the Empire Air Scheme. Legislation has also been passed which gives the Direc- tor-General of Civil Aviation power to control the opera- tion and expansion of the civil air services. Given the proper appreciation of the part which civil aviation can play in the development of a continent sixty times the size of England, the Director-General should be able to do much to bring in an era of orderly and efficient de- velopment of the air routes. This decision shows a sound outlook and follows a period of "aeronautical thotightfulness" on the part of the Menzies Government when they took over from the Lyons Cabinet. The incoming Menzies team did not know every- thing about the airline system of the Commonwealth and rightly said to the Civil Aviation Department, "We must think over this matter; award temporary contracts to the airline companies for six months ending December 31, 1939." Apparently the thinking has been to some pur- pose, and haa no doubt been helped by the demonstration of usefulness in wartime which has been given by the civil airlines ever since Peace hid her face. ~M.ach.ine Shortage The transport aircraft in Australia must be getting rather depleted in these days with the four DC 3s of Aus- tralian National Airways taken by the Government as a squadron for the R.A.A.F and two all-metal craft involved in fires in the air, fortunately with no lives lost. Further information on the DC 2 Bungana accident, reported in our issue of February 22, makes it appear likely that a collision with a bird bent the airscrew and so caused it to vibrate so much that the petrol pipe broke. The subse- quent fire weakened the tubes of the engine mount so much that the engine fell out. All of which shows that full-feathering airscrews are worth while—if anything does happen, the rotation of the engine can be stopped and the vibration which might lead to further more serious damage eliminated. The temporary shortage of aircraft has been still further accentuated by the torrential rains to which Cen- tral Australia has been subject in January, .causing numerous minor mishaps such as bogged aircraft and lost rescue 'planes. (Central Australia is remarkable for the fact that in many parts of it no rain will fall for years, and then will come a downpour that converts the Finke River, usually a dry river-bed, into a raging torrent a mile wide.) A Gipsy Moth was wrecked about 250 miles from Darwin when taking relief provisions to the Roper River police station, and an A. of A. Dragon was lost near Nor- manton, in the north of Queensland. Happily it was found later bogged on a cattle station. On the trans-Tasman run, Aotearoa continues to go backwards and forwards between Australia and New Zea- lajad, and hnd completed her eleventh return trip on February 8. This was done against a 40 m.p.h. head wind which extended from a low altitude up to at least 15,000ft. and the crossing took 11 hours. It is expected that an early start will be made to run a regular service across 1o New Zealand. Pan-American Airways is reported to be seeking per- mission to run a four-day service once a fortnight from San Francisco via Honolulu and Noumea to Christchurch in New Zealand. A weekly service is intended later. Pre- sumably it is lack of aircraft which has prevented-Pan- American starting earlier on the trans-Pacific run. •v••"•--••-; Active Research Work at the Aeronautical Division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is going ahead actively. This division was set up after the visit of Dr. Wimperis to advise the Commonwealth on aeronautical research, and is under the charge of Mr. L. P. Coombes, for- merly of Farnborough. A wind tunnel has been designed and a model constructed, and the contract for the con- struction of the tunnel has been let to a Melbourne firm for the sum of £9,098. On the manufacturing side there was a rumour that the Government intended to take over Commonwealth Air- craft Corporation, which is a private arms-manufacturing concern with the capital largely held by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, the steel monopoly of Australia. Other firms with capital invested are General Motors— Holden and Imperial Chemical Industries. Nothing further has, however, been heard of this rumour. The Corporation has put out the first aircraft of its own design. It is a low-wing two-seater open cockpit trainer with a Gipsy Six engine. Of wooden construction, it will be a trainer of somewhat more lively characteristics than the Tiger Moth, and should be suitable for pilots who have mastered that aeroplane and are ready to pass to something else. Its top speed is said to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 140 m.p.h. The Aeronautical Inspection Directorate will be ex- panded, a,nd is to be pm; entirely on a civilian footing. Applications have been called for these posts: Director of Aeronautical Inspection (salary £1,000 to £1,100 a year), Assistant Director (£750 to £852), Chief Inspectors (£636 to £708), Inspectors (£582 to £660), Assistant Inspectors, grade I (£510 to £546), grade II (£402 to £474), and Chief Examiners (£360 to £372). Lightning LIGHTNING discharges to aircraft in flight occur betweentwo oppositely charged regions in cumulo-type clouds and are most likely to occur between 26 and 34 deg. F.—that is, near freezing point. This information is given in a-paper on lightning in the Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, by E. J. Minser, for December, 1939. The paper advises the following flight procedure: — 1. Avoid, if possible, instrument flight through large cumulo-type clouds, especially at the level where the tem- perature is between 25 and 35 deg. F. 2. If, when on instruments.^jt is apparent from the tem- perature and degree of static am! corona discharge that T the aeroplane is in a highly charged zone, and a dis-charge is imminent, reduce speed afad descend, 3. If a change in altitude is not possible and a reduction ofspeed does not materially reduce corona or static, keep . eyes focused on the instrument panel, which should oebrightly lighted at night. This will help to prevent tem- porary blindness if a discharge occurs near the cockpit- ;. Mail on " Hannibal" HE Postmaster-General announces that air mail fromIndia for this country was on board the air liner Hanmliui, i«U Inf*. Tt'n ^^f>I-.i #-.« A£.rt*--.U T Tr.A ir. nsM*r mlccinP It I- •' 'which left Karachi on March 1 and is now missing. It yet known whether any of the mail is likely to be recovtn'
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