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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0141.PDF
JANUARY 15TH, 1942 FLIGHT 5» AIRCRAFT REPAIR given diagnosis. The inspector states the damage, the planner specifies ail that is necessary for the repair to be carried out. In order to accomplish the planning, a descrip tive report of the damage is necessary; as for example: 1. Lower part stiffening plate at joint between rear body and tail portion, buckled—renew. 2. Fuselage door, cable, operating ladder, broken— renew. 3. Gun elevating jacks, bolts fixing, deficient. From these reports the planning is carried out, the parts, materials, and A.G.S. are identified on the drawings. It is for the planner to use his imagination. If the inspection report states a bracket is buckled, it is for him to decide if the adjacent fittings are also gone. Will they require the bolts to fix the bracket with, or will they use the old ones? To those who understand the complexity of modern aircraft, with its thousands of parts, many of which are almost identical in design and, therefore, almost identical in description, will realise it is no sinecure calling up parts and materials to,the correct specification from a worded description of the damaged area and its location. The inspector who drew up the report will necessarily be a L ^Ood man on aircraft construction and installations, but his choice of aeronautical locations, not to mention his phraseology, may well be of a different nature from that of the engineers who drew up the schedules. Consequently, there is room for many a red herring in an inspection report. Planners' Difficulties This may lead the planning engineer off the beaten track. It has to be bome in mind that the inspector and the air craft may be hundreds of miles away from the works in which the planning department is located. However, most of the repair planners are fully conversant with aircraft construction and aeronautical engineering practice, so no matter how bad a report, they can generally be relied upon to call up the correct specifications "of materials and parts, together with the host of details necessary in order to carry out the repair successfully. The planning of spares presented a difficulty. The repair planning department had to plan in arrears. No one could forecast how many of that particular type would want repairing within a given period. The only satisfactory solution that could be devised was that the estimator based his figures for spares and materials on past experience and planned for those average certain ties that always went on, a crashed aircraft, and to rush through the other items when they became known. In point of fact this is done, and outside progress men are sent out to speed up deliveries and obtain close co-operation The New Curtiss P-40-F THE first military aircraft m the United States to be equipped with the new American-built Rolls-Royce Merlin, the Curtiss P-40-F single-seater fighter, is claimed by its makers to be "the hardest-hitting plane yet built in U.S.A." The American-built Merlin is being produced by the Packard Motor Car Co According to the American Press, Mr, T3urdette S. Wright, president of the Curtiss Airplane Division of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, has stated that Auny experts agreed with their own engineers that the P-40-F will outshoot any combat machine of its type in the air. and in the matter of speed and service ceiling will compare favourably with any other fighter aircraft in the world. The new "F" series is being quantity-produced by Curtiss- Wright for the U.S. Army Air Corps and the R.A.F., and is said to have a fire-power "almost the equivalent of five 050 calibre and ten 0.30 calibre guns." The Airacobra is, so far, the only shell-firing American fighter in the R.A.F. A fraction under 400 m.p.h. is unofficially given as its top speed. This is equal to a 23 per cent, increase on the speed ol tlte Curtiss P-36 Hawk, of which the P-40 is a development. betvyeen the firms concerned and sources of supply. The arrangement is a very satisfactory one, and to-day all essential spares for every type of aircraft are catered for, and held in reserve for any aircraft that may require them. Final Testing After repairs have been carried out they are subjected to various tests on the lines of the undercarriage test mentioned earlier. Another test of importance is that cf the ignition and bonding. This is carried out to ensure that the correct layout has been followed in the fitting processes. The correct tension of the cables is noted, and it is alsq/*recessary to see that good electrical contact is maintained throughout the system. The installation is examined to ensure that sufficient slack exists in the cable at the contact-breaker earthing terminal to allow full movement of the assembly, viz., through' its full range of travel from the "fully retarded" to the "fully advanced" positions. The continuity of the L.T. earth ing system is tested by means of a magneto synchroniser. The leads are connected up, the unit switched on, and the brilliancy of the light is' noted. After numerous exercises are carried out on the connections and switches, the inspectors are able to judge if the circuit ^'continuous or not. If it is, the lamp maintains its brilliancy throughout the operations. If it becomes dimmed or lights up inter mittently, a resistance is indicated, and the fault is traced and rectified. All this fault-finding and inspection carried out by inspectors and A.I.D. on repaired aircraft is of vital im portance. The modern aircraft with its complex installa tions need to be thoroughly analysed when repair has taken place. To the pilots who fly them it means con fidence ; to the enemy it means, that our aircraft are repaired and maintained to thytr pitch of perfection that is the hair-breadth dividing line between shooting down the. enemy and being shot down oneself. Finally we come to the men and women who actually work upon the machines and fit them out. A great majority of the labour is semi-skilled. Considering their training and amount of experience, it is high testimony to their ability and enthusiasm that they are repairing work of a complicated nature Each fitter is allocated to a certain specified section or system of the aircraft. By this means he is able to specialise in that particular branch, and in a surprisingly short time he is fitting that section in no amateurish manner. The work is supervised by certified Air Ministry Ground Engineers, whose practical experience and trained knowledge fits them to supervise work of this description. The Northrop Tailless AN explanation has now been given of the apparent incon sistency among illustrations of the Northrop tailless mono plane to which a reader referied in our issue of last week. Our American contemporary Aero Digest, in its November, 1941, issue, publishes a long article on this new and interesting air craft. From this article it emerges that the Northrop tailless duplicates an Armstrong-Whitworth machine built many years ago, in which nearly everything could be altered. In the Northrop, means are provided for changing the sweep-back, dihedral angle, wing twist (i.e., degree of washout), and angle of the wing tips. Our contemporary states that, as originally flown—that is, we believe, with the wing tips at a negative dihedral angle of approximately 45 deg.—the machine was too stable. The pictures and films which show the Northrop with the tips in line with the wings were probably" taken during later stages of the scries of experimental flights. What the final form will be seems to be si ill uncertain. As was to be expected, the control surfaces at the wing tips are used as elevators and ailerons. It is the rudder control Which is still the subject cf experimentation.
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