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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0672.PDF
294 FLIGHT MARCH 26TH, 1942 TOPICAL AIRCRAFT PROBLEMS exhaust gases is utilised in the turbine and only the remainder utilised for direct jet propulsion. The left dia gram refers to a full-pressure height of 6 km., that on the right to a height of 12 km. (36,600ft.). In the case of the engine designed for a full-pressure height of 6-km. the superiority of the turbo-blown engine disappears at air speeds as low as 400 km/hr., while the turbo-blown engine with a full-pressure height of 12 km. is superior up to air speeds of about 900 km/hr. The explanation of this marked influence of altitude is that with increase in height the available temperature drop increases. The tempera ture drop in the engine with turbo-blower takes place in three stages, viz!, the engine cylinder, the exhaust gas turbine and the ejector exhaust. This utilisation is more economical than the two-stage mechanically driven super charger with ejector exhaust. In fuel consumption also the superiority of the turbo-blown high-altitude engine shows superiority for any speeds that can be expected in any foreseeable time. Furthermore, the regulation of the turbo- blown engine to suit any altitude is almost automatic, since power required by the blower and power developed by the turbine increase similarly with height. High-altitude Engine Accessories The maintenance of engine power up to great heights is not the only problem set the engine designer by high-alti tude flight. The low air density also affects many other parts of the installation. Great altitude brings with it cooling problems, for example. If the engine power is maintained, the quantity of heat which has to be got rid of remains the same. Owing to the lower air density, however, the mass of air flowing through the radiator is lower at altitude. This effect is Opposed by "the drop in temperature with height, but at great heights the adverse 0 200 400 600 800 1000 0 200 400 600 800 1000 £iH POWER PLANT WITH JET •• POWER PLANT WITH TURBOBLOWER Fig. 15. Exhaust gas utilisation through ejector exhaust and turbo-blower at different altitudes. effect of density preponderates, so that altitude flight requires larger radiators. In addition, the permissible tem perature of the cooling water drops, because at a height of 12 km. (36,600ft.) water boils at a temperature of 60 deg. C. To mitigate this drawback it is possible to use high-pressure cooling for the whole system. The same pre cautions may be necessary for the fuel system, since the fuel may, at the low external pressure, begin to evaporate in the tanks or pipe lines, which may lead to an interrup tion in the fuel supply. (To be continued next week.) UNLUCKY WEEK-END Four Air Disasters British General Killed in China : Three Women Officers in A.T.A. Crash :• Japs Shoot Down Civil Machine N O fewer than 31 persons lost their lives in four air crashes which happened recently, in China, Western Australia, South Africa and Great Britain, and of these one was the result of enemy action against an un armed civil air-liner. Major General Lancelot Dennys, head of the British Military Mission to China, was one of twelve persons killed near Kunming, the Chinese terminus of the Burma Road, when the passenger aircraft in which he was flying crashed in flames shortly after taking off from the airport. Four other British subjects (one, a woman) and three Americans, of whom two were U.S Army officers, were among the dead, in addition to the two American pilots. Four injured survivors were another American Army officer, a British Government official, and two Chinese passengers. Accord ing to an American report, the machine caught fire in the air and the tail broke away. That accident was on March 14th. Next day two military aircraft collided in mid-air near Kennilworth Racecourse, Capetown; news was received that a K.L.M. air-liner was shot down on March 3rd by Jap fighters near Broome on the coast of Western Australia, and a machine of the Air Transport Auxiliary crashed in bad weather in this country. In the first of these three disasters, seven members of the South African Air Force, three members of the R.A.F., and two civilians lost their lives; in the second, a woman, a child, and two men perished, and in the third, two women officers of the A.T.A. and the male pilot were killed, a third woman.officer being injured. It is also stated that 26 other people were injured in attempting to rescue the pilot and women A.T.A. officers from the wreck age, while in the Capetown crash, eleven civilians were taken to hospital as a result of several houses being set on fire by one of- therplanes. Reports from Perth, Western Australia, indicate that th<$ four deaths caused by the attack on the Dutch air-liner '- occurred when the twelve occupants were machine-gunned and bombed on the ground after a successful landing had been made. The commander of the air-liner was Capt. Ivan Smirnoff, who joined K.L.M. 20 years ago, and although he sustained bullet wounds in both arms and one leg, and his aircraft was set ablaze by the fire from the Japanese fighters, he managed to pull off a safe landing. Not satisfied with having shot down a perfectly defence less civilian machine, however, the "gallant" representa tives of the Nippon Empire swooped down to machine-gun the stranded passengers and, next day, a Jap flying-boat arrived overhead and dropped five bombs among them. It was during these attacks on the ground that the Dutch co-pilot,- the mechanic and a woman passenger and her child received wounds from which they died. The eighjr survivors were subsequently rescued. Capt. Smirnoff, who is probably K.L.M.'s oldest pilot, was born in Russia but eventually became a naturalised Dutch subject. It was he who piloted the Fokker F.18, Pelikaan, on the famous Christmas mail flight to Batavia and back in 1Q33, for which achievement he was decorated.
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