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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 1704.PDF
14 Topics of ihe Bay FLIGHT JULY IST, 1943 Comparisons and Compositions Is the Modern Aircraft Any More Difficult to Fly Than Its Predecessors ? Comparative Training Effects : Wanted—A New Literature of the Air DISCUSSIONS between two generations are usuallyinteresting so long as the remarks don't becomeacrimonious or merely suitable for insertion in the " line book." So long, in fact, as the participants are not the sort of people who listen only to their own voices and treat other conversation merely as an unfortunate sand- wich between their own inimitable remarks, witticisms and stories. There are people—you have only to watch their eyes to know—who never by any chance listen to what the other fellow is saying, but wait patiently for their own turn. To listen to a conversation between, say, J^ pilot of a Typhoon and one of a Camel is the most entertaining en- tertainment in the world, so long as the yoking pKin doesn't suffer from a swollen head and the old rfianAs still youxig in mind and receptive of new ideas. The youngster, Vf | course, is sure that the modern machin^'ia, more diflicu\ concentration,' is horrified wit no COJJT- to manage and requires more training, and more mechanical knowledge—an the idea of flying, let alone going to chute. The veteran feels that in aircraft and not mere masses of mechi miss a parachute because it just hac that such a device could be used. There is no end to the discussion, sincVthere mon ground on which the two can tread, comparatively short experience of flying machines I find it impossible to judge the relative difficulty of various types, once one has become accustomed to each. Quite obviously one's first aircraft is an extremely difficult affair, and, in a different way, one's first experiences with the " modern " type are equally harrassing. Such items can- not fairly be included in the balance sheet. In the same way, it a pilot returns to a light aircraft after hundreds of hours on heavy modern devices, he usually finds that the "advanced" type of light aircraft is a good deal more easily managed than one of the basic kind. I find a Magister, for instance, much less trouble- some than a Tiger Moth, but such a comparison is more than odious; other pilots may not agree and certainly the ab initio pilot will not necessarily find it to be true. The reasons for my preference are hard to define, but the most obvious ones—such as low-wing view, steep approach, and more "automatic " landing characteristics—are merely the obvious effect of recent experience. Furthermore, an easy flying machine is not necessarily the best one on which to learn. Moderns are Easier J3ut when one comes to compare operational types which have been used since the beginning of the war, and on which one may have flown a more or less even number of hours, the comparison is still just as difficult. It is the most enormous tribute to designers to say that, on the average, the operational aircraft of 1943 is no more difli cult than the same type of 1940. It requires more room on which to take-off and to land—and such room has been provided—but it is just as viceless, and the only difficulty worth discussing is concerned with the increase in neces- sary " drill." particularly in the larger examples. But this drill is counter-balanced by the fact that we have become accustomed to drill, as such, and that it is, relatively, no more tiring now to deal with the taps on a Fortress or Lancaster than it was, in the old days, to remember the nonsense on a Blenheim or a Battle. So far, performance seems to have cost us practically nothing but plain cash—more expensive airframes, more expensive engines and more expensive airfields—and cash doesn't matter a very great deal at the best of times, and certainly not in the middle of a war. In general I should say that aircraft are a little easier to fly than they were, though count must be taken of the cumulative experience, whether actual or passed on by instructors, of the pilots. Easy as the Mosquito, for instance, seems to the 1943 new- comer or the experienced pilot, I doubt even if the best of pilots in 1033 could have coped more than haphazardly with it. And I'm forgetting the drill. He'd hasfo got it down, but he would have been puzzled by the hmding characteristics into^a succession of minor '' balloons " ; by the quietness pad calm of the approach excessive gliding speed and consequent overshoot; noise and acceleration during take-off into a series »f j^fer-corrections with the rudder; and by the lightness fthe\ controls, perhaps into some structure-destroying Irobamcs. Though it is safe enough to put the two-hun- ired-haur pilot of 1943 in charge of a Typhoon, Beaufighterr or Moaquito, it most certainly would not have been safe to pu/a pilot of similar experience on these machines in y The new boys have been worked up quickly but sc|initincally to this stage of comparative skill. But, as ~'/e said befoie, giver the effect of later knowledge and fater ideas, aircraft are easier to fly than thqy ever have been. Writing About It Incidentally, it is time someone really tried to produce a literature of flying as it really is^ / None of this business of riding the clouds, strength through joy, beneath the empyreum, oi tnrobbing power and outstretched wings over a carpet of cotton-wool; of the man-eagle, the pierc- ing blue eyes, the quick, icy decisions ; of riding alone with death; and of wings over the world. That nonsense is all very well as propaganda for the very young—in mind if not in body—and, as such, has served its purpose. Now that flying, with bombs and sudden death as well as with important passengens, is almost a commonplace, it is time that someone wyjwre feelingly about it before it actually becomes a commonplace; it may then be too late. Oh, I know that people have written good books about the world of the flying man. White's "England Have My Bones'' was one of the better books describing that world as far as it concerned the man in the flying club; Lewis's " Saggitarius Rising" is one of the very best pieces of literature about the 1915-1925 flying man; and Hillary's " Last Enemy" is almost a classic as a record of the ideas and background of the young man who fought the Battle of Britain for us. But all these are books about people and people's reactions rather than about the machinery they control. The time has comerfor some- one to write about aircraft as Forester writes, ^or instance, about ships ; to write about the flying man's feelings in the Joyce or Hemingway manner, with none of the " air- mindedness " manner thrown in ; and to waive the melo- drama which still, somehow, clings to the prosaic but intensely interesting business of aeronautics in the modern manner. Listen to this: " . . . There was an even chance of her being pooped—Hubbard could tell, by the feel of the deck under his feet, how each of these grey mountains in its turn blanketed the close-reefed topsails, and robbed the ship of a trifle of her way. He could tell, too, by the way the quartermasters had to saw back and forth at the wheel to meet- the Delaware's unhappy falling off is each wave passed.under the counter. If she once broached- to then goocJn^Jye to the Delaware . . ." That sort of thing is sheer joy to the reader who has any sort of passion for, and understanding of sailing ships, but it is an almost equal joy to the reader who doesn't understand
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