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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0233.PDF
JANUARY 2QTH, 1942 FLIGHT c •each, roughly two-thirds of the whole cost of the plane. * As there are no fewer than 80 types of British warplanes and 30 American types, the great variety of aircraft stores is easily understood. Equally important is the part played by the repair and reconditioning of aircraft engines. "From these operations all our aircraft returned." Yes, but sometimes a bit scarred. Having run the gauntlet of flak and Nazi fighters, some of them need repairs, most of which can be made by the air station ground staff, whose expert handling soon puts the aircraft back on the active list. But until lately, when engines were badly shot up or crashed they were scrapped. That is no longer so. To a newly equipped M.A.P. factory damaged povwer units are rushed from the air field, or where they 'were crashed, and line up for treat ment—some with no more than a clean bullet hole, others so battered that the casual onlooker would say they were .1 total loss. Now they can be repaired. One engine per fectly reconditioned counts as a new one, and so salvage is hastening air supremacy. Merely to patch up a wrecked engine was always pos sible ; and if second-rate performance were good enough for the R.A.F., it would have been done long ago. But the engines now being dismantled are not going to be patched up. They will go back into the air equal to new, #-je*s Jts to revolutionary processes devised by some of the nest brains' in automobile engineering. High-pressure air and paraffin vapour cleans off the dirt and blistered paint before repairs begin. One part of the engine to suffer in most crashes is the crankcase. The large cracks that used to mean the scrap-heap are now "Bombers," by C. G. Gtey. Faber and Faber; 6s. net. M R. C. G. GREY has followed up his book '* Fighters " with one entitled "Bombers." As one would expect of Mr. Grey, he writes about a good many other things besides bombers—in fact, to be candid, this book is rather discursive. Inevitably he tells a lot of anecdotes—and Mr. Grey's anec- dotage is always attractive. Occasionally he inserts the excusing clause "if I remember rightly," and at least once his memory has failed him, for on page 16 he has confused the two attacks made on Zeppelins by Fit. Comdr. Bigsworth and by Fit. Sub-Lieut. Warneford. It was the latter, not the former, who brought down LZ37 (which unfortunately fell on a nunnery) and his reward for this feat was the Victoria Cross. Geography also occasionally lets Mr. Grey down, especially India. On pages 65-66 he writes: '' The Punjabi does not admit that he is an Indian, and asserts that India only begins east of the Indus." If he will glance at a map he will see that something like nine-tenths of the Punjab does lie east of the » _ Indus. There are other slips in the book, but we will content \ ourselves with reflecting that even Homer (yes, and even ) Flight—see page 186 of Mr. Grey's book) nods at times. More important is the doctrine propounded by Mr. Grey in this book, and two of his conclusions are to be heartily approved. On page 134 he insists that for work with the Army special types of aircraft for dive-bombing and ground-strafing are necessary, and that "the personnel must be trained with the Army for the Army by the Army." Also, on pages 149 and 193, he concludes that bombing by itself cannot win a war. With these doctrines Flight is quite in agreement. Subsequent events in Malaya, however, have proved Mr. Grey to be a singularly poor prophet. For the rest, we can best give our readers an idea of what to expect in this book by outlining the successive chapters. The first part runs through developments in the last war; the second deals with developments in the inter-war years and includes four chapters which describe at length and in detail movements and personalities in the United States; Part 3 deals with the present war; and Part 4 is called " Aerobio- graphies," and gives lists of aircraft firms in Britain and the United States, their products, and the personalities in the various firms. "How an Aeroplane Flies," by C. G. Grey. George Allen & Unwin, 2S. I N his opening chapter of this little book, Mr. Grey, who is not a qualified pilot, asserts that "... many people who know how to fly an aeroplane, and some who fly quite well, have little idea of how or why an aeroplane flies." Our view is that, while it may not be necessary for a reasonably com petent pilot to possess the wealth of theoretical knowledge on aerodynamics which the author has compressed within his 86 welded, and the weld is braced with a steel tie-rod/ leaving the case as strong as ever. This particular factory is one of many. The fine show of repaired crankcases here indicates the huge savings effected by the new methods. Ninety-nine per cent, of the engines that come here are successfully reconditioned. Reboring is also carried out. First thickly plated with a hard chromium, the cylinder linings are trimmed down to the original diameter. Worn crankshafts are reground, the connecting rods rebushed, and the whole assembly trued up. Much of the work is done by girls. By good organising each engine repair is spread over some number of workers employed on the motor's thousands of parts. Many of the lighter components, such as valves (to be cleaned and ground), are as quickly handled by women as by men. And so the repair process comes to an end. Only re assembling and testing remain. Into the testing bays go the "finished power units; scientific instruments locate faults and exactly measure performance. Passed Ai, the reconditioned power units go back into fighters and bombers—on active service again. The repair of damaged aircraft engines achieves a double purpose; it not only puts warplanes back into the air quickly, but it means a great saving in man-hours, materials and money; the most expensive engine repair costs only a fraction of the cost of a new aircraft engine. In war it takes time for a democracy to get under way. Germany had a long start. Thanks to British and U.S. efforts, the enemy has now been overhauled. Mounting production will maintain not only our present strength but the overwhelming air fleet now in preparation. pages, he must, if he hopes to go on flying in safety, have a fairly good knowledge of why his aircraft flies and, per se, the essential conditions to be maintained if it is to remain airborne. Air Cadets, fot whom this little book is intended as a hand book, will learn much from it, but they must always keep in the forefront of their minds that it is not entitled '' How to fly an Aircraft." When Mr. Grey deals with the tail unit, for example, he says, under the sub-heading of "Turning," that the primary purpose of the rudder is to make the machine yaw. Aero- dynamically speaking, that is perfectly correct, but woe betide the learner pilot who puts it into practice and starts indulging in skid turns! On the next page Mr. Grey describes how to put a machine into a steep bank and pull it round in a turn by means of the elevators, and this, he tells his young readers, is "the ortho dox method of turning." That, again, is not untrue, but it ignores the orthodox method of making a more normal turn requiring less than 45 degrees bank, in which the procedure is distinctly different. In effect, Mr. Grey is here encroaching on the subject of "How to fly an Aircraft" as distinct from " How an aircraft flies," and, in doing so, is in danger of inviting his young readers to run before they can walk—a mistake no practical flying instructor would make. " Great Britain and Ireland; Catalogue of Internal Air Mails, 1910-1941." Compiled by N. C. Baldwin. Francis J. Field, Ltd 3s. bd. T HE publication of this catalogue during the present exceptional paper shortage conditions," says the preface. " has been possible only as a consequence of American interest in everything in British aero-philately ." It will, of course, be of equal interest to those in Great Britain and Ireland whose hobby is air-philately. Many readers will perhaps be surprised that air-philately goes back as far as igro, but one discovers from this interest ing catalogue that tde very first example was an unofficial effort, unblessed by the P.M.G., inaugurated at the Lanark Aviation Meeting, August 6th-i3th of that distant year, end the circular postmaik read, " Lanark Grand Stand " The first official air mail, properly accepted by the postal authorities and duly stamped before flight, bore the circular postmark with the legend, " First United Kingdom Aerial Post; September 13th, rgrr, London." This was between London and Windsor and dealt only with some special cards and covers issued in various colours. But the first regular air mail service would appear to have been one run for the postal authorities between Windermere and the Isle of Man in 19^7-1918 by naval seaplanes to over come the'U-boat menace in the Irish Sea. BOOK REVIEWS
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