FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0383.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEKLY IN THE WORLD •• FOUNDED IQOQ f Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. COVENTRY : 8-10, CORPORATION ST., Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone : Coventry 5 2 10. BIRMINGHAM, 2 : GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 297! (S lines). Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE, 26B, R E N F I E LD ST., Telegrams: lliffe, Manchester. Telegrams: liiffe, Glasgow. Telephone : Blackfriars 4412. Telephone : Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Abroad : Year, £3 10. 6 months, Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. £110 6. 3 months, 15s. 3d. No. 1730. Vol. XLI. FEBRUARY 19th, 1942. Thursdays, One Shilling. The Outlooks All Fours A PERUSAL of the article which we publish in this : ssue, dealing with the history and development of British four-engined aircraft types, may cause some surprise at the revelation that this country has taken such a leading part in the evolution of this type. In some quarters there seems to be an impression that Great Britain has been backward in this respect. That view can scarcely be sustained after discovering that, during a period of 25 years or so, this country has pro- "*apluced something like 20 different types of four-engined aircraft. At that, our list does not claim to include everything built between 1918 and the present time. For instance, there was the large Fairey N4 Atalanta, which was built and flown in 1923. The Fairey com pany did not go on with flying boat construction, and thus the machine did not become the ancestor of a "family." There was also the Avro 642, of which only a single example, the Star of India, was built for the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon. And there was the ill-fated Tarrant tnplane, which crashed on its first take-off, and which had no successors. There are probably others which might have been included, but we have confined our review to the types which have formed a definite part °f the history of evolution of the four-engined class. An interesting fact which emerges from a survey of *the last 25 years is that Great Britain has never been very enthusiastic about the tandem arrangement of engines. Other nations, notably Italy and Germany, have produced considerable numbers of aircraft, par ticularly flying boats, in which the power plant con sisted of one or two pairs of tandem engines. The only British type with tandem engines to be used to any great extent was the Short Singapore flying boat. This is rather remarkable in view of the fact that our very first four-engined bomber, the Handley Page V/1500, had the tandem engine arrangement. Moreover, this country retained the biplane type longer than most other countries, and the tandem engine arrangement lent itself* more readily to installation in a biplane than in a monoplane. What the explanation is we do not profess to know ; we can only draw attention to the fact. Intelligence! A GREAT many people have expressed puzzled astonishment at the system, if any, which guides the Ministry of Economic Warfare in its selection of targets for our bombers in Germany itself and German- controlled countries. In view of the predominating importance of air power, it might have been thought that aircraft factories, and the factories of the industries ancillary to them, would be obvious targets, but rela tively few attempts have been made to destroy such fac tories ; many have not had a single visit. One cannot help wondering whether an appeal issued to the Press by the Ministry of Economic Warfare a short time ago may not throw light on the subject of target selection. The naive appeal asked for statistical publications, official handbooks, guides, maps, plans, trade and exhibition catalogues, and street and telephone directories, issued within the last ten years. The italics are ours. The inference is, and more than one publication has so interpreted the appeal, that the Ministry of Economic Warfare is singularly ill-informed concerning the loca-
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
