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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 2396.PDF
542 F L t G Good-bye to All That E LSEWHERE in this issue we publish extracts from and comments on a publication issued by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in October last, in which the secretary of the Institution, Dr. Charles G. Abbott, withdraws the claims made over a number of years that the tandem monoplane con structed by a former secretary of the Smithsonian Insti tution, Samuel Pierpont Langley, was the first heavier- than-air aircraft capable of sustained flight. We welcome this report for several reasons. First and foremost because it gives to Wilbur and Orville Wright the credit, which is their due, for having pro duced the first man-carrying aircraft capable of pro longed controlled flight. Secondly, we welcome it because it clears the honoured name of Langley from association with a set of circumstances which can only be described as deplorable. And finally we welcome it on account of the frank and unreserved way in which its author. Dr. Abbott, expresses his regrets at actions taken by earlier officials of the Smithsonian Institution, the good name of which has thus been cleared. While on the subject of the Langley flying machine of 1903, it is not without interest to recall that Langley called it an "aerodrome." In time that expression came to be applied to the field from which aircraft operated.. The machine itself became generally known as an aeroplane, and remained so for a great many years. Several years ago the British Air Ministry adopted the word "aircraft" as the generic term for any heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air type, distinguishing between different classes by the words landplane and sea plane, the latter again being subdivided into floatplane and flying boat. During the present war official nomenclature has broken away from the use of the word aerodrome, and all official communications now refer to landing grounds as airfields. Realising the undesirability of the very mixed nomenclature which had grown up, Flight de cided many months ago to adopt a uniform style by using aircraft, airfield, aircraft engine, and so forth. After all, when the Royal Air Force was founded, the ranks chosen for the new service were Air Marshal, Aii Commodore, etc., and not Aero Marshal . . . etc. We frankly admit that it was not easy to break away from a practice which had grown up during a period of more than thirty years, and that at first the new terms grated somewhat, but now that the United States air services are working so closely with our own, it is more than ever desirable that we should be able to "speak one another's language," and "air" in all its connotations will very soon be generally accepted without question. CONTENTS The Outlook - War in the Air Here and There ... The Aerial Mercantile Marine Behind the Lines - Aircraft Characteristics Fighter Armament—Part II Desert Sjotters ... Topics of the Day Correspondence ... Torpedo Bombers Again Amende Honorable Service Aviation - - - - - _ - 552, - - - - - - - 541 543 546 547 552 a and b 553 557 558 559 56i 562 563 J NOVEMBER TQTH, 7942 MEDITERRANEAN WAR ZONE Relative Position of Strategic Bases in Africa and the Mediterranean THIS map gives a general view of the campaign in the Mediterranean, showing the countries and places involved in the advance of the United Nations from both West and East. The im portance of the French naval base of Bizerta stands out in relation to the possibilities of an invasion of the Axis " under-belly" from Northern Africa. Readers will be able to form their own estimates of the importance of various islands, remembering the anxiety expressed by Hitler over Corsica.
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