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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0386.PDF
ig6 FLIGHT The Flying B< Will it Survive : Questiop^^yf^T^adingy ?orced Landings FEBJlt'ARY 24TH, 1944 -al Stability and By C. A. II. POLLITT IN our "ssue of Decercibe. /6lb, (943, Mr. Pollitt examined sfnevthatjfhtatty the report issued by Saunders-Roe, Ltd. (" Flight," November 25th, 1943) entitled " The Cas^mthe Flying Boat." Since then we have had the benefit of the raaof sucn well-knowi\J^i0rgboat experts as Mr. H. Knowler, Mr. W. P. Kemp and Mr. A. Him TIT ihit i|ii<ifcUn*tH)Tii7fiff discusses points raised by some of 'hese contr'butors, and enlarge upon his previous obis&jfations. THE controversy inspired by my recent criticism Flight, December 16th, 1943) of the Saro report has thrown light on a number of interesting points and has evoked the views of some of the staunchest advo cates of the flying boat who have replied with force and conviction to my seemingly provocative comments. Much of what has been written has served to elucidate the more conflicting issues but has left other and more searching questions still unanswered, a fact perhaps best attributed to the brevity of my original critipism, in which I defined only three failings of the flying baai. Before with drawing from the argument I would therefore like to en large upon and corroborate my previous observations. At the outset: There can be no more worthy cham pions of the flying boat than those who have guided and impelled its development over a period of very many years. Mr. Knowler (Flight, January 6th, 1944), Mr. Kemp (Flight. January 27th, 1944), and Mr. Gouge (Flight, Feb ruary 10th, 1944) have been conspicuously associated with the finest boats yet built, and each is intimately acquainted with the advantages, and the limitations, of the type. On the one hand, the point is madfe that the prevalence of fog in the London area may justify a British terminal being remote from the Metropolis while the need for cabin pressurising is claimed to render a flying boat hull admir ably suited to the purpose. On the other hand, Mr. Kemp's inspired pronouncements are a comprehensive survey of geographical features that would favour the establishment of virtually world-wide flying boat services. He lays added emphasis on the potential worth of extensive seaboards, of sheltered lakes and convenient rivers, all of whichJ agree are valuable assets. But this is not true judgiryent: latent geographical potentialities will not improve the flying boat as a com mercial transport. And then we have Mr. P. J. Edmunds' letter in the issue of January 13th. This constitutes a breakaway into the sphere of the amphibian in an endeavour to put the flying boat on an equal footing with the landplane in so far as coast-to-coast transport is concerned. Combined with these arguments there is the point made in the original Saro report that " . . .in spite of the Special importance of the flying boat to the maritime peoples of the British Commonwealth, there is a danger that it will not be given its proper place in the programme/St develop ment for the future." Looking Back If experience demonstrates an inherent disadvantage, then the past four years of Service aviation have indeed produced illuminating evidence of the total inadequacy of the flying boat as a load-carrying medium. Coastal Command shares as close an affinity with the sea as almost any other branch of the service, with the possible exception of the Fleet Air Arm, yet Coastal Command employ only three flying-boat types as against nine types of landplane. (See table.) Then again: Of the considerable fleet of aircraft oper ated by British Overseas Airways—whose title and function COASTAL COMMAND AIRCRAFT Flying Boats Catalina Sunderland Lerwick Landplanes Liberator Hampden Beaufighter Wellington Fortress Halifax Hudson Manchester Ventura are surely synonymous with the purpose of the flying boat —only 25 per cent, or so are flying boats. The answer to this is easy, because the success of the flying boat is con tingent upon special conditions. In the first place, if any thing other than personnel is to be carried, the most con venient place to stow it is under the wing. For small bombs, depth charges, or what-have-you this is an accept able expedient, but if the cargo be heavy freight or mer chandise it can only be loaded through hatches in the top of the hull, and one has visions of floating cranes and barges, etc.. etc., as in Fig. 1, contributing to make the whole business as difficult and complicated as ever. I submit that no scheme can be evolved for loading a flying boat with the ease and facility of a landplane. My considered opinion is that these facts explain the apprehension that future development may overlook the flying boat and are a pointer to past indifference to the type. Those Forced Landings Let us look at the evolution of the flying boat from first principles: It has been said that the flying boat is the result of the impact of aeronautical experience on the marine mind, and that despite the technical excellence of the modern flying boat, it is a tact that in any flying * Fig. 1. The author's idea of the sort of cumbersome loading arrangement we might have to use. boat design a balance must be struck between the conflict ing requirements of aerodynamic efficiency and sea worthiness. . j In this light the flying boat is presented as a compromis^ in which aerodynamic efficiency is to some extent sub ordinated to equally uigcnt practical requirements. As an example, consider the retracting wing-tip float. This is
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