FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0196.PDF
TOO FLIGHT JANUARY 27TH, 1944 Ready-made airport. A pre-war scene at the Baltimore terminus of B.O.A.C^ind Pan American Airways. The Future of the/FIving Boat i^Fatovurs Marine Aircraft : Structure Weight in Relation Shipping Companj^s By W. I ying Bopt Operators THE AUTHOR of this article is a director \pdJfoint geg/rdfT manager of Short and Harland, Ltd., in which concern two of our best-known flying boat and shiljnilhtefsare merged. Before taking up his appointment in Ireland he was for many years a director aha works manager of the parent firm of Short Brothers, Ltd. .>- IN his reply in Flight of December 16th to the Saro article dealing with the employment of flying boats, Mr. C. A. H. Pollitt "rushes in where angels fear to tread." I do not propose to enter the controversy of comparison of structural weight, except to say that it appears obvious that the difficulties of strength, tyre loading, undercarriage mechanism and weight, and length and cost of runways, all increase rapidly with the increase in size of the large land machine. In the case of the flying boat, however, the loading per square foot of planing surface increases only very slightly with increase of size up to almo/t any limit. Again, reinforced concrete runways are costly to build and maintain, and at least three must be provided of sufficient length, width and thickness at all terminal or intermediate airports to enable safe landings to be made under varying wind directions. The flying boat, on the other hand, has, generally speak ing, unlimited sea, lake or river spaces all over the surface of the globe, and these, in many cases, are ready-made. If they have to be provided near large centres of popula tion, the cost of construction of^a lagoon, or enclosed water space, of a depth of, say, 8ft. or gft., would probably be no greater than that of building the necessary runways. In some districts where the subsoil is suitable, grading of the bottom and earth embankments with puddled clay cores would be all that would be required to hold the water, and this might conceivably be a lot less costly than making reinforced runways. Shipping Comparison The trouble is that lack of vision has resulted in much more thought and money being expended on airfields than on suitable water facilities for flyjng boats. Consider the hundreds of miyions of pounds which have been spent on the harbours of the world as aids to ship ping, and the resulting great industries and centres of population which have growrf up round these harbours because of their accessibility to other parts of the world. It is true that this is largely due to cheap transport of bulky goods, but, nevertheless, it is also due in a l6#ge measure to the fact that men and women who traverse
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
