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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0135.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE W>RLD • FOUNDED WOP Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 35 lines). 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVE N TRY. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone : Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2 97 1 (5 lines). 260, DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams : Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone : Blackfriars 4412. 26B, RENFIELD ST., GLASGOW, C.2. Telegrams : Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: No. 1673. Vol. XXXIX. Home and Abroad : Year, £2 8 0. 6 months. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. JANUARY 16th, 1941 £14 0. 3 months, 12s. Od. Thursdays, Price ?d. The Outlooks Towards the StratosphereO WING to the time lag which always exists between the conception of a new type of aircraft and its introduction into service, it is very necessary for designers to look ahead and to visualise what is likely to be the " next step." This process is difficult enough in all conscience when commercial aircraft are contem- plated. In the case of military types the designer's difficulties are multiplied many times by factors over which he has no control. He is already sufficiently occupied with purely technical questions, and when to these are added the uncertainties of operational policy he may well be excused for guessing wrongly now and then, particularly when one bears in mind that there is a very good chance that changes will take place in operational policy between the time a specification is issued and the time when the machine is about to go • into service. Such cases are not unknown! We on Flight have long held the view that one '' next step " will be in the direction of greater operational alti- tude, and we have felt it our duty to warn the country of the danger that Germany may now be preparing new types of aircraft capable of flying over this country at altitudes which cannot be reached by our anti-aircraft guns or by our existing fighters. The prospect is not a cheerful one, but the possibility is there, and it is necessary for us to be on our guard. Not so very long before the outbreak of war an eminent German scientist lectured before the Royal Aeronautical Society and told of some of the results which German research had obtained at the D.V.L. Among them were some rather alarming data concern- ing supercharging, a subject which is very closely allied to that of sub-stratosphere flying. At the time Flight said that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves if it was indeed a fact that we had let Germany get ahead of us in the matter of supercharging, in view of the long lead which we had at one time established in this particular field. It is not to be assumed that Dr. Seewald was permitted to give results achieved, nor even to divulge the nature of, the very latest researches, and it would be safer to take it for granted that much progress has been made in the meantime. Fundamental Problems ASwe feel that sooner or later this country will be f\ faced with the problem of dealing with high-flying German aeroplanes, we have thought it of interest to examine the fundamental problems involved, and in this issue we publish an article by Mr. W. O. Manning in which he outlines the broad principles of the subject. The author has made the article as elementary as pos- sible, so that even non-technical readers should be able to follow his arguments. Certain general conclusions emerge. There, are, for instance, no special difficulties in the design of the air- craft itself. The wing loading and power loading have been kept low for obvious reasons, and in external form the aircraft can be quite orthodox. The main problems relate to supercharging the engine and the cabin. In this connection it may be remembered that before the war at least three British firms were engaged on high- altitude work. The Fairey and Short companies had orders for actual machines, and General Aircraft were doing a good deal of private research. The war inter- fered with this, and the orders were shelved, but General Aircraft have found time to continue experimental work in spite of difficulties and interruptions, as shown by the pictures on page g. We do not know whether or not the conclusions reached by Mr. Manning on purely theoretical grounds agree in all cases with the practical experience of the firms mentioned, but he does not foresee insuperable difficulties in developing three-stage superchargers.
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