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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1663.PDF
JUNE 6, 1940 round one There is, therefore, ahead of the operators a highly interesting and perhaps exciting period. Secondly, are we in future designs to assume dependence on refuelling in the air or any other means of assisting heavily loaded aeroplanes to take off? At present refuel- ling is a most valuable adjunct to British transatlantic flying; it has been most skilfully developed and is capable of further development. But while I have no doubt about its value now and in the immediate future we cannot un- critically assume that it has come to stay. The matter needs a most careful analysis. On the one hand, it is a means of enormously increasing the range of an aeroplane at practically no expense in performance ; its potentialities in this direction have been put forward by Mr. Langley with considerable restraint and are still impressive. On the other hand, it requires equipment and organisation and bad weather may hinder it. The questiori is an economic one—smaller aeroplanes and refuelling versus larger '' self- contained " aeroplanes. The outcome of this debate will have a considerable influence on transatlantic design. Apart from the methods of reducing ground friction, the other possible means of assisting take-off seem to be in- applicable to really large passenger aircraft, and it is doubt- ful whether they are economically applicable to the smaller mail plane. The Route to the East The Golden Road to Samarkand had no more romantic appeal and no greater importance than the great airway to the East. It is the greatest high road the world has seen ; Air France use it to reach Indo-China ; K.L.M. use it to reach the Dutch East Indies; and we go farther along it still to reach Australia. At Alexandria it joins with the trans-Africa route to Durban. The present speed along these routes is disappointing. Even so, the improvement on other means of transport is impressive; the journey to Australia takes 10 days by air compared with six weeks by sea. The fact that in 1932 the K.L.M. Douglas DC2 flew to Melbourne in the Mac- Robertson race in 2 days 23J hours suggests that con- siderable improvement is possible. The flying time to Sydney is less than 100 hours and a tremendous saving would be possible if the route and aircraft were designed for night flying. At present speeds, passengers would still have to live on board for about five days. But we should aim /or something better. At present the route to Sydney has 36 stages varying between 533 and 170 miles. I put forward the idea of a fast service joining the main constituents of the Empire, with a service such as the present one acting as a feeder line all along the route. 513 The fast service might be Southampton-Alexandria (2,563 miles), Alexandria-Karachi (2,655), Karachi-Singapore (3^433). Singapore-Darwin (2,319). On more direct courses these stages might be roughly 2,200, 2,100, 2,700, and 1,800 miles. With an aeroplane comparable in perform- ance with that for the transatlantic service, the journey could be done in about 30 hours' flying time. I hope others may be sufficiently interested in this idea to work it out in detail. It suggests a possible two-day trip between Southampton and Darwin. On the trans- Africa route corresponding improvements appear to be possible. The aircraft used would need a greater degree of luxury than the transatlantic craft. Besides provid- ing ample space and entertainment for the passengers, it would have to keep them safe and comfortable in a variety of climatic conditions. European and Internal Routes The main characteristic of the European services from London must always be their high frequency. The in- tense competition between the European countries will en- sure the continual elevation of operating speed. The fre- quency would seem to make the appearance of really large aircraft unlikely, and one visualises the use of short range aeroplanes providing day and sleeper accommodation. Night travel and night mail services are also obvious developments. Conceivably the special conditions of the short London- Paris route may produce a specialised type. It is possible that the volume and type of traffic may grow to dimen- sions demanding ferries of great seating, perhaps even strap-hanging, capacity. If such a service could be run at cheap rates it might set a fashion in international trans- port with inestimable benefits to European peoples. It would be idle to pretend that there is great scope for internal air lines in Great Britain. The distances be- tween aerodromes and towns so often make the effective speeds of air travel less than that of trains and automo- biles, but there must be room for a highly organised service based ' 1 the Maybury plan. The requirements would be regular night operation, a high-speed civic-centre-to- aerodrome service, and a fast, small transport aeroplane. The chief virtue of all internal services is frequency. For all routes in Great Britain, therefore, we may expect to use relatively small aircraft for some time to come. I feel that we could use a fast ten-seater and a fast five- seater. I visualise these as all-metal aircraft with cruis- ing speeds not less than 200 m.p.h. and such aircraft should find a ready market elsewhere. (To be continued next week.) NEW NAVAL UNIFORMS : A formation of Blackburn Skua naval fighter dive-bombers showing the Vertical red, white and blue stripes on the fin. The vertical tail markings were officially abandoned some years ago as they interfered with the mass balancing of the rudder ; it may not have occurred to anyone at the time to place them on the fin.
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