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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1837.PDF
JUNE 27, 1940 565 Fig. 14. The single-seater fighter Bell Airacobrais the outstanding modern example of shaft drive between engine and airscrew. engine well forward, even though completely enclosed. Shaft drives are therefore indicated, and means of cooling which shall not disturb the laminar airflow. Shaft drives are not new —witness the Paulham-Tatin monoplane of 1911, the Westland F 7/30 biplane of 1934, the Dornier Do 18, and the Bell Airacobra. It is difficult to believe that their development will be unattended by troubles, and I foresee an extension of the admirable work that has been done on engine-airscrew vibration. In landplanes the pusher airscrew almost inevitably requires the tricycle undercarriage. In the seaplane, it probably means tilting engines (as in the Dornier Do 26) or tilting shafts. Engine Size Increase of engine size will reduce the number of unitsrequired and therefore the pilotage problem of handling a multiplicity of controls. But in the large aeroplane it isstructurally desirable to spread the load over the span, and where the control is rather in the hands of a captain on hisbridge than a pilot in his seat, difficulty is reduced. So on large aircraft we may expect a multiplicity of engines. For a 200-ton craft we should need about 40,000 h.p.It is improbable that there would be room for more than eight airscrew discs across the span. If these are alltractors, or all pushers, then the possible solutions are eight 5'°°o h.p. units, probably each driving a pair ofcontra-rotating screws, or 16 2,500 h.p. units, each pair driving a pair of contra-rotating screws. I would suggestthat the latter is the easier problem and that for some time to come we might well be satisfied with 2,500 h.p. motors. On aircraft instruments and equipment future work willinevitably be directed' towards accuracy, convenience, lightness and compactness. More accurate height indica-tors and more intelligent automatic pilots are on the way. We may even some day get a true-speed indicator. Radioengineers will continue to improve the aids to navigation and landing. With their help we are trying to put theaeroplane on ethereal railway lines. On aerodromes the future problems in this country areeither architectural or else scarcely separable from aircraft design problems. We must try to get clear whether weneed downhill runways or other means of assistance such as catapults or rail trolleys. Will the aerodrome designers beable to assume cross wind take-offs ? Even the problem of aerodrome surfaces is related to aeroplane tyre pressures. Education and Training However carefully we may plan the organisation, and however successful we may be in obtaining the material facilities for its progress, success must always depend on having properly trained people engaged in it. In examin- ing this matter we realise that the education of men for aviation must be conducted to a great extent without par- ticular reference to civil or military aeronautics. Both are grounded on the same fundamental laws. Technical progress depends upon the initiative, intelli- gence, energy, knowledge, ' skill and resource of the designers and research workers. Education can impart knowledge and skill, but the others are personal qualities. Aviation must ensure that it gets its fair proportion of men with these qualities. It can do this only by providing careers attractive intellectually and pecuniarily. There should be a more widespread introduction of aero- nautics into university curricula, as at present this tends to be rather a sideline. It is possible in the University of Lon- don to take aeronautics as one of the subjects of the degree in engineering, and courses are available at Northampton Engineering and Queen Mary Colleges. There is a post- graduate course at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, leading to the diploma. One of the most encouraging signs recently has been the decision of the Uni- versity of London to institute a degree of Bachelor of Science (Aeronautics). But no facilities exist in the majority of universities and university colleges. This is illustrated by the fact that there are only three professors of aeronautics, at the Imperial College, Cambridge University, and Hull Uni- versity College. There are readerships in London University (Queen Mary College) and Glasgow University. It is not suggested that every university should have its aeronautical staff and laboratory. It is desirable, however, that every college teaching engineering should illustrate the funda- mental principles by appeal to aeronautical examples as well as to civil, mechanical and electrical engineering; that applied mathematicians should be led from hydrodynamics to aerodynamics; and that physicists should be introduced early to airflow and aircraft instruments. If, in addition, students spent their vacations in aircraft works and were encouraged to make and fly gliders, they would have gained some knowledge of aeronautics on which to assess its attractions as a career. There is a need for a coherent scheme of aeronautical education which would embrace the improvement of con- ditions-of employment," relate the demand fpr and supply of talent, insinuate aeronautical ideas into general instruc- tion, provide' for advanced teaching, and elevate pro- fessional status. • This Society,' by the standards of its Associate Fellowship examination, by championing the idea of the engineering degree, in aeronautics, by its lectures, by its encouragement of .the student," ha's played, already a great part in .aeronautical education: There is no body better qualified to bring about the planv I have briefly sketched. „. Apprenticeship Schemes : The universities will supply material for'rnaking designers and researchers, but the builders of aeroplanes heed a:di#er- ent background. The man with the university "degree may be well suited to a post in works management, but we shall not look to the university as the main source of supply. There have grown up a number of institutions, often con- nected with the apprenticeship schemes o£ firms in the industry, which, while providing elementary theoretical training, concentrate rather upon the manufacuring aspects of aeronautics. Their importance in the educational scheme cannot be overestimated. We may' expect for some time to come that the recruit- ing ground for airline pilots will be the Royal Air Force, but this training does not immediately fit a man for air transport duties. At the beginning of the war the general elevation.of standards already rioted in other branches of aviation was apparent also on the piloting side. The Guild of Air Line Pilots-and Navigators arid the British Air Line Pilots' Association in collaboration with the Air Min- istry and the Air Registration Board, were engaged in rais- ing the already high standard. The'provision of the neces- sary knowledge is/in the cases of the companies forming the British Overseas Airways Corporation, in the hands of what might be called a post-graduate school of pilotage. Civil aviation I regard as a necessity of commerce and as an instrument of prestige. "Sometimes it is possible to develop a commercial necessity' by purely commercial means and simultaneously achieve national prestige. I do not think that anyone believes that development on this basis is possible for British civil aviation, which must be dealt with as an essential Empire service. Its speed brings more men together more often, and
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