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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 2055.PDF
AUGUST 19TH, 1943 FLIGHT 201 MORE MISCONCEPTIONS takes him off his line of runway approach, so he turns backagain with a much more conscious and thought-out correc- tion. He remembers the re:correction, but not the quiteinstinctive initial yaw into wind. Another interesting thing happens as he holds off alongthe cross-wind runway. By now the aircraft is moving in a most pronounced crabwise fashion relative to the ground ;such a movement neither looks nor feels, right, so the pilot tried to straighten up with a touch of rudder just beforethe landing. That jab ot rudder brings the aircraft square with the runway -and also gives it a momentary skid in theopposite direction, thus partially cancelling out the drift and making the landing almost comfortable. I've oftenwondered why an approach with a seemingly wrecking amount of drift ends up with a fairly normal landing, andI'veactually watched myself in a quite impersonal sort of way apply that rudder. I don't say that the correctiveskid is at all pronounced, or that it is more than half the story ; the other half is the fact that inertia takes a hand.At one moment the aircraft is going straight down the run- way, but the nose is pointing, say, twenty degrees off theline, the next application of rudder brings the nose round and the. aircraft hasn't had time to move out of its originalcourse (down the runway) before the landing has been com- pleted. Somebody recently asked about the effect on generalcontrol of a dihedral tailplane with fins and rudders set at right angles to each section of the tailplane. Since rudderand elevators change their respective jobs gradually as a turn is increased in steepness, wouldn't it make it rather difficult for the pil*t? In fact, of course, the two controlsdo not change their functions at any time as far as the aircraft is concernsd—and that is what really matters. The pilot would probably notice very little, since, as I'vesaid, the woik done by the two controls remains the same in any position of the aircraft. The only difficulty mightbe one of area, since the rudders might not be effective enough to hold the nose up in a steep turn, and the eleva-tors might be a trifle soggy, but in a turn the pilot would notice only the effect of the contiols as they were used to-gether, and would find it almost impossible to distinguish the relative value of each. In a forty-five degree turn, forinstance, the weakness ol the elevator as a " nose-raiser " would be balanced by the greater power of the rudder inthis respect, but, <n fact, the controls would continue to do the same work, and any weakness would be just as dis-coverable in level flight. The pilot's reactions and motions are too complicated and instinctive in a steep turn for himto distinguish clearly the different components. Unless a definite vice appears, the ordinarily good pilotdoesn't care whether more or less elevator or rudder is required at any stage of an evolution—he just gets on withit. For instance, certain aircraft nowadays tend to build up their own turns, and forward pressure has to be appliedto the control column in order to prevent the turn from becoming too tight for comfort or efficiency. Yet dozensof pilots have probably never noticed the characteristic, so reflex have been their corrective movements, and are pro-bably quite surprised when a works test pilot tells them why the aircraft behaves in that particular way; they honestlyhadn't noticed any peculiarity. One can multiply examples of this sort of thing ad infin-itum, but I think I've said quite enough. "INDICATOR." A.T.A. BENEVOLENT FUND T^URTHER donations to the Benevolent Fund of the AirJ- Transport Auxiliary have to be acknowledged. With the subscriptions listed below, the total amount received is^8,035 us. 7d., which, added to contributions of members of the A.T.A. and B.O.A.C., gives a sum of ^10,801 9s. -ad. Donations should be addressed to the Secretary, A.T.A.Headquarters, White Waltham Aerodrome, near Maidenhead, Berks. Donations already acknowledgedContributions from A.T.A and B.O.A.C. Personnel 2.775Standard Motor Co., Ltd Northern Aluminium Co.Portsmouth Aviation, Ltd. Austin Motor Co., LtdN. C. Joseph, Ltd Limes Trustee Co. Liverpool Social ServiceThe Worshipful Company of Grocers .. English Electric Co., LtdHighspeed Steel Alloys ...' Lewis Berger - Brooklands Aviation, LtdVaughan Bros Kelvin, Bottomley and Baird, Ltd. ..Lagonda Motors J. V. Rushden, Ltd.Aerolex, Ltd British Insulated Cables, Ltd.British Parachute Co., Ltd Cellon Ltd Consolidated Pneumatic Tool CoCoventry Radiator and Presswork Cb. Creed and Co. East Anglian Engineering Co Esavian, LtdHeenan and Froude, Ltd. The Hughes-Johnson Stamping Co., LtdKigass, Ltd Loewy Engineering CoJohn L5'saght Llewellyn Ryland, Ltd. R.E.B. Tools, LtdTelcon Metals Brailey Electroplateis, Ltd c975 775 200 52 52 50 50 50 26 26 25 25 25 25 25 21 15 15 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 6 s.6 17 0 10 10 0 0 0 55 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 15 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 0 0 d.7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Ashdowns, LtdBratt Colbran, Ltd .F. W. Cook and CoE. K. Cole, Ltd Richard Crittall and Co John CrossleyGilchrist Bros G.P.A., Ltd F. HalfordLancashire Aircraft Corpn Malcolm, LtdDavid Roseniield Turner and SavageU.M.F. Aircraft Wessex Aircraft Engineering Atlantic Coast AirlineChance and Hunt War Charities Fund Thos. P. HeadlandA.BC. Motors, Ltd G. J. AlldayCounty Commercial Cars, Ltd Coventry Gear Cutting, Ltd Hamilton Engineering Co " H. C. HaslegroveThe Northern Diecasting Co., Ltd. .... Utility Electrical Co Acorns Works 4Boullier Engineering Co. Aluminium Bronze Co., Ltd W. H. BriscoeCommercial Printing Co., Ltd De La Rue Plastics, Ltd Fraser and Chalmers Engineering WorksD". Morgan Rees and Sons, Ltd J. H. RobertsonRecord Electrical Co Salford Electrical InstrumentsSerco, Ltd Wolf Electric ToolsF. E. Woodward Zwicky, LtdJ. and W. Baldwin Manchester), Ltd. British Rawhide Belting CoJohn Hearson and Co Landis and Gyr, Ltd TOTAL AT AUGUST 12m £10,801 9 2 55 55 55 55 5•5 55 55 55 54 33 33 33 33 3 2 o 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 I 1 I I 55 55 55 55 55 55 55 5o o4 33 33 33 33 2 10 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 I I I I O o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 0 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o G o o o o o o o
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