FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0427.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE W6RLD •• FOUNDED mo9 J EditorC. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVENTRY. 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, 26 B, REN FIELD ST. GLASGOW, C.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION Home and Abroad : Year, £3 10. 6 months. £1 10 6. 3 months, 15s. 3d. RATES : Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. . . No.1678. Vol. XXXIX FEBRUARY 20th, 1941 Thursdays, Price 9d Fighter Range / „ ^_ . ; ;C ^PT. NORMAN MACMILLAN, in his article this week, refers, among other things to the subject of fighter range. He examines briefly the claims of the different systems which have been proposed for increasing range, and comes to the conclusion that, for the particular purpose he has in mind, the best solution is the straightforward one of increasing the petrol tankage. He does not, unfortunately, explain how the ' space (which he admits is already taken up by other things) is to be found. One thing must be clearly realised in studying this problem : it is necessary to distinguish between duration "^nd range. Where the former alone is essential, such as is the case when it is desired to enable a fighter to do . a long patrol, speed during that part of the flight which precedes the actual air fight is not very important. - Hence the refuelling scheme, the composite and the slip-wing, and Mr. Pemberton-Billing's towed fighter can provide the duration. Moreover, the fighter with low power loading does not require assisted take-off in • the way that a heavily loaded bomber needs it. Even .-- with an overload of fuel, the fighter should be capable of getting into the air under its own power, so that if - the fuel can be accommodated the range can be achieved. hong'range TanksI T seems logical to assume that if tank space cannot be found inside the fighter, it must be found outside it. That seems to be inferred in Capt. Macmillan's somewhat tantalising remark '' There are several ways °f adding tankage without adding too much resist- ance." We may be a bit dense, but we can only think °f two. There is the very obvious one of an external streamlined to reduce the drag. That is..almost as old as flying itself, for did not Henry Farman have cylinders with petrol on the top of his lower wing when he made his first world's duration record, and it has been used on innumerable occasions since. The only refinement which comes to mind for application to modern conditions is the arrangement of means for jettisoning the tank when it has served its purpose. Extravagant, but justifiable in wartime. Besides, the tank could, if necessary, be made of wood or some other non-metallic material. An alternative method might be to make the tank of some form of impregnated fabric, so arranged that when it was empty the tank could be '' collapsed'' and its extra resistance saved in order to give the fighter its maximum performance when the fuel had been reduced to that carried in the normal internal tanks. (A non-technical member of our staff makes the facetious suggestion that the extra tank might be towed behind the fighter, supported by a small *pair of wings and stabilised by normal tail surfaces. In other words, a sort of producer gas plant trailer arrange- ment !) Hitting the Night BomberI N a broadcast the other night Air Commodore Goddard said that since June over 140 night bombers had been '' collected into the bag, apart from those in Davy Jones's locker." Few people can have realised that our night defences were so effective. An average of twenty night bombers a month for certain, in addition to those which we have destroyed without being able to count them, is not an unsatisfactory result. Natur- ally it does not compare with the high totals amassed by the Fighter Command last summer in the daylight raids, when German bombers and fighters came over in swarms, offering targets such as delight the hearts of sporting fighter pilots and of A. A. gun crews. We ought not to forget that in those lurid months our A.A. g'inners
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
