FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1942
1942 - 2205.PDF
OCTOBER 22ND, I942 FLIGHT 441 casing wall was 1,976 deg. F., and the outer shell 1,380 deg. F. With a screen inserted these figures were lowered to 1,920 deg. F. and 392 deg. F. respectively, the screen assuming a temperature of 332 deg. F. Multi-screw Plant for Large Aircraft Constituting an interesting '' peep into the future '' is the multi-screw plant projected by L. E. Baynes and tie Alan Muntz Co. for large trans port aircraft. The general layout of the plant in a large flying boat having a pressure-sealed hull for high-altitude operation is given in plan and elevation in Fig. 10. Six wing-mounted turbine units A driving airscrews are sup plied with combustion gases from a battery of generators B located in the pressure hull where they can be given atten tion or adjustment during flight. There is no access from the pressure hull to the interior of the wing. The generators aie arranged in two banks, one on each side of the centre line of the hull, and deliver gas to a common manifold C from which a vertical duct D carries it to the wing level. Here it passes to lateral ducts E serv ing port and starboard turbines, the distribution being controlled by butterfly valves F which enable speeds to be adjusted and permit directional control when taxi-ing on the water. Details of the generators are not specified, but they may be of a stationary type resembling the Brown-Boveri units already described, or of the Pescara type, in which the driving gases consist of the combustion products from the engine cylinders of free-piston compressors. It is pro posed that the generators be cooled by a liquid circulated along the leading-edge of the wing to prevent icing. The arrangement of the turbine unit driving the airscrew is illustrated in Fig. n. From duct E driving gases enter the annular space G and pass forward to the inlet of the turbine H, which drives the airscrew through a reduction gear J. The exhaust from the turbine H is conducted to an auxiliary turbine K driving primary and secondary stage turbo-blowers L and M. These units draw air from the nose of the casing immediately behind the airscrew. The wing-mounted turbine unit for the Baynes-Muntz project. and after compression deliver it to lateral air ducts N in the wing. Auxiliary turbine K exhausts directly to the slipstream by way of passages P. From ducts N the air is fed to pairs of manifolds Q (Fig. 10) supplying port and starboard banks of gas generators. At the rear of the banks of gas generators is an auxiliary turbine R driving an electric generator for the ancillary services of the aircraft. One of these is an electric motor- driven air compressor S for charging a high-pressure stor age bottle T from which manifolds Q are filled when the gas generators are to be started up. Forward of the gas generators another auxiliary turbine U drives a blower which maintains the requisite air pressure inside the hull when the aircraft is flying at high altitudes. Conclusions From these necessarily brief accounts of the difficulties confronting further increase in the power output of recipro cating engines and of the practical achievements of the combustion gas turbine in other spheres, it would appear that the turbine units may in the near future be adapted for aircraft propulsion. This article deals specifically with gas turbines driving airscrews and does not attempt to cover jet propulsion by turbine-driven compressors, which involve other considerations. It should be remembered that the turbine propulsion unit, whether airscrew or jet type, can be arranged to provide a large measure of automatic com pensation for variation in barometric pressure, and is thus particularly suitable for aircraft operating at high-altitude levels. In this respect it resembles the exhaust turbo- supercharger for reciprocating engines which is, of course, a turbine-compressor unit employed for auxiliary duty. T.CA.'s War Role IN Western Hemisphere defence, Canada's national air line, the T.C.A. is playing an important part. In addition to moving members of defence personnel of both Canada and the United States on urgent business, airplane parts, medical and hospital supplies, serums, repair parts for machinery, etc., needed in a hurry, are shipped by air express. In the matter of air express, this has grown to considerable proportions, according to F. M. Smith, Superintendent, Canadian National Express at Moncton, which handles air express shipments for Trans-Canada Air Lines. Air express services are operated by the T.C.A. in the Maritimes between Moncton and Halifax, Charlottetown, Summerside, Saint John, N.B., Sydney, N.S., and Gander and St John's, Newfound land. Connection is made at Moncton with the transcon tinental services of the Trans-Canada Air Lines, with North east Airlines from Boston, Mass., and with Maritime Central Airways. In the case of the Newfoundland service, inaugurated on May 1st last, the number of packages has grown from 147 with a total weight of 2,440 lb. for the month of May to 443 totalling 8,839 lb. for the month of August, of which 55 packages totalling 1,049 lb. were on United States account. At Halifax total packages have grown from 305 with a weight °1 2,256 lb. for the month of August, 1941, to 415 with a total weight of 4,762 lb. for the same month this year. The time factor is one of the features of air express, Mr. Smith stated, as, for instance, a package leaving St John's, Newfoundland, Gander, Newfoundland or Halifax, N.S., in the afternoon, should arrive Montreal or Boston the same evening, and New York, Winnipeg or Vancouver the following morning. The total amount of air mail and express carried by the Trans-Canada Air Lines also showed increases in July, accord ing to the report recently made public by O. T. Larson, vice- president. Passenger traffic declined slightly from 10,317 in June to 9,440, but the indications are that travel was heavier in August. During July the mail load amounted to 192,971 lb., an in crease over June of 18,867 lb., and 83,728 lb. better than July, 1941. The greater volume was spread fairly generally over the entire system, with a notable increase in the quantity out of New York to Toronto, which was nearly doubled in the month. Increasing by 4,342 lb. over June, air express reached a record of 33,323 lb. The average length of passenger journeys over the T.C.A. in July was 555 miles, as compared with 525 miles in June and 504 in July 1941. New Plywood Military Trainer ON contract for the U.S. Army, the Ryan Aeronautical Com pany, pioneer of the low-wing training plane field, has completed a new plastic-bonded plywood military primarv trainer of advanced design which is believed to be the nearest approach yet reached toward the almost complete elimination of strategic materials in military aircraft. Aluminium alloys and all strategic materials have been eliminated in the new Ryan ST-4, with the exception oi the engine cowling, which represents less than 2 per cent, of the total weight of the airplane. No forgings, castings, or extru sions are used, nor are critical steels used for any of the nf tings or structural parts. The ST-4 is an open cockpit two-seater powered by a 185 h.p. 6-cylinder horizontally-opposed air-cooled Lycoming engine.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
