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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1187.PDF
JUNE 4TH, 1942 FLIGHT 359 POST-WAR CIVIL AVIATION Mr. Mites Pleads for Vast Expansion, in Our Research and Development Programme T HAT Great Britain should start at once on the plan ning of post-war civil aviation is a view which has been expressed in articles and leaders in Flight on several occasions during recent months. These views found strong support at a luncheon in London this week, when Mr. P. G. Miles, managing director of Phillips and Powis, told representatives of the Press some of his ideas. Mr. Miles prefaced his remarks with some observations on the way in which, during the years before the war, this country's surplus of exports over imports had gradually dwindled, and had now disappeared. For a high standard of living after the war it was essential that a favourable balance should be re-established, and among the few JSn^'sh industries which seemed likely to be capable of achieving that desirable end was the aircraft industry. He quoted as an example the case of Switzerland which, by importing a pound of steel costing a few pence and applying skilled workmanship to it was able to export it in the form of watches costing many pounds, thus maintaining for its nationals a high standard of living. Great Britain had, Mr. Miles said, led the world in ship ping, and there seemed to be no reason why she should not do the same with flying after the war. What wa,s necessary was long-range planning, with large sums of money devoted to research and development. He would start by allocating the equivalent of one day's war expendi- '' Buried '' Engine Details U.S. Patent No. 2,259,102 recently assigned to Rudolph Daub, of the Wright Aeronautical Corp. (applied for on June 10th, 1939) is of interest. The patent drawing illustrates a liquid-cooled engine featuring four cylinder banks; one set of two banks each, one bank arranged above the other, from an angle of 30 deg. This relatively small angle makes possible a low height of the engine, and due to the fact that the cylinder axes intersect only on the opposite side of the crank shaft axis the width of the engine is kept within moderate "fSfaits. Both these advantages could have been incorporated also in the design of a horizontal "H" engine; the new Wright design differs from the latter inasmuch as for the power transmission the two crankshafts of equal function are replaced by a single main crankshaft. On each cr'ankpin of the main crankshaft is mounted an independent bearing spool to which are journalled the four connecting rods in the manner of the articulated connecting rods of a radial engine with symmetri cally arranged crankpins. The bearing spool or connecting rod end possesses a vertical arm, on the free end of which acts the corresponding crankpin of an auxiliary crankshaft. The latter is driven by the main crankshaft via an intermediate gear in the same sense and at identical angular velocity; its cranks possess the same eccentricity as the corresponding cranks of the main crankshaft and are maintained in a posi tion parallel to the latter at all times, so that the bearing spool continuously maintains its upright position. Each of the four pins upon which the connecting rods act therefore rotates around an axis passing through the central plane of the corresponding cylinder bank. As a result, identical conditions of motion are produced for the piston and connecting rods, as r'i'a. separate crankshaft were provided for each cylinder bank. The small loads absorbed by the auxiliary crankshaft enable the crankpins of the auxiliary crankshaft to be made small enough so that they can pass between the cheeks of the main crankshaft; at the same time, the two shafts can only be mounted at a small distance away from each other. The ture to the establishment of an air port that would be capable of handling any size and type of aircraft that could conceivably be built during the next ten years. He would spend very large sums on development and ad hoc research, and by doing that there would be no technical problem concerning an aircraft to carry 150-200 passengers across stages of 3,000 miles to which the answer could not be given. On the operational side only practical experience could give the right answer, and he suggested that one landplane type and one flying boat type should be built in fair num bers and operated against one another in order to discover which was the more useful type. The whole of the Fmpire and the United Nations must be joined in the effort of planning and operating the post-war routes, and there should be no monopoly. He thought that the shipping companies would readily come into the scheme, as they foresaw the day when nearly all passengers would travel by air. But research was the all-important factor, and it would have to receive far greater support than it had ever done in the past. Mr. Miles recalled that- in 1938 the United States Maritime Commission looked into the matter of ocean routes and came to the conclusion that passen gers could be carried by air as cheaply as by sea, using 150-seater flying boats which were regarded as quite feasible technically. new type of design will be especially suited, like the horizontal "H" arrangement, for multi-cylinder high-performance engines designed for submerged installation in the wings of large aircraft or so-called "flying-wing" aircraft. Wright High-performance Flat Engine. Inter Avia.) (U.S.A.) Lubrication and Wear CONTRARY to the general belief, merely improving lubri cating characteristics does not automatically reduce engine wear; rather, wear depends largely upon engine operating conditions even with oils of better oiliness. No single labora tory engine or test machine has been developed to the point where '' acceptable '' correlation of wear with service seems possible. A distinction between the wear characteristics of straight mineral oils and certain compounded mineral oils can be made, but as yet the data are not sufficiently sensitive to allow more extensive conclusions. Wear was greater during the break-in period with oils containing oiliness additives, but afterwards it was less. The authors concluded that scuffing wear is the kind which can best be correlated between engine and laboratory machine tests, and the most certain to be improved with oiliness agents Still another point is the relationship between the results of tests made with so-called extreme-pressure test machines and those made on other machines or in actual engines. It is obvious that lubricants containing additives having greater extreme-pressure properties show to advantage in such tests. It is not equally obvious, however, that such compounds are actually superior in service. Nevertheless, when compared with straight uncompounded lubricants, it would appear that they definitely reduce wear, or at least that of the scuffing type. Co-operative Engine Wear Studies (Digest). (F. L. Miller and others, S.A.E.J.) (U.S.A.) WOULD B*m SS SUMMARY RESUME OF TECHNICAL ARTICLES DEALING WITH AIRCRAFT AND ASSOCIATED SUBJECTS For the summaries and translations from aircraft and technical journals of the world, we are indebted to the Directorate of Scientific Research and Technical Development. Ministry of Aircraft Production.
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