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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0646.PDF
336 FLIGHT MARCH 30TH, 1944 Indicator Discusses Topics of the Day Man-power for i h«k 3l«i 111 moi li s Are We Trying to Run Before We Can WalU?: In Criticism of Hundred' ton Projects : Choosing the Crews/: The Human Element f W HENEVER I see pictures or descriptions of somey*" catasj^opl^s as the crews, keen on showing the usefulness projected aerial giant of the future, I am fi|led o I feel that hand1, and. no account man is going b\en made. sly\xha ent-daV aircra mpy co\(%tiof s] with vague forebodings. Not onl the whole thing is being allowed to get o that, consequently, the designer boys mu/£t be given their head, but I wonder what s- to be allowed to drive the outfit when it Remembering the many wet and ne struggles we've all had with biggish p. while copaing in to land in difficult or I wonjJ^r whether the plan ners of the future really do ; know what its all about or whether they are taking altogether too much for granted. Do they know how much skill and experience is needed to bring a modern machine down safely in a cross wind and when rain or snow or bad visibility are making things increasingly difficult? Do they realise quite how much the safety of the passengers still depends on this skill and experience—and even more on the mental and emotional make-ug,of the pilot? Do they really understand that an aircrjj£t7 whether big or small, and however well appointed with bed-sitting-rooms and cocktail bars, is still something that can stall in, or swing stupidly and uncontrollably after a badly executed cross-wind landing. Do they remember that, except for a certain increased steadiness due to size and wing-area, there is no essential difference between a Spitfire and a six-engined commercial aircraft weighing a hundred tons or so? I don't really think they do, and I don't think they realise that everything, in the end, depends on one man— and that one man cannot stop and think, or drop anchor, or ask for the assistance eftugs or of a pilot who knows the layout of the terminal airfield. There it is, a hundred tons of assorted and not very robust ironmongery, cleaving the sky at a minimum speed of 140 m.p.h., and actually making contact with the runway (perhaps not square into wind) at 100 m.p.h. odd. And it is still only an enlarged Spitfire with a higher landing speed and, maybe, consider ably less pleasant characteristics. Tricycles—or whatever the ultimate development may be of the e.g.-forward level-landing gear—will simplify the touch-down and remove the possibility of swinging, either on take-off or landing, but the approach must still be made with accuracy and the end of the runway, (not the next field or tMe brace of hangars in the corner) must still be hit accurately and at the right angle in any sort of weather. Temperamental Baskets Surely we must learn to walk before we can run, and surely we cannot afford to put all our eggs in a few large baskets when the baskets are still such slender and tem peramental things? Let us spend the first ten years of the peace developing new and better means of flying with safety, while using aircraft of reasonable size on the air services, before we even start to think about hundred^ton giants filled with over-confident people. When we've flown a series of airlines for a year without a single accident which can reasonably be put down to*aerodynamic vice or human error—then we can start thinking big. At present it is just crazy to imagine that we can go on increasing weight and size and '.ving-loading without a continuous series of major NOT everyone^yvill shore the*'' views here expressed by •'Indicator," in spite of his long experience as a pilot, which entitles him to be heard with respect. Flying history appears to show that we have always found the pilots for new aircraft types. Before this war one might have doubted that youthful pilots could be taught in a few months to fly our heavy bombers to Berlin and back through bad weather, heavy flak and fighter opposition. We are not likely to have thousands of " hundred-tonners " flying about on civil work, and the comparatively few pilots required can surely be hand-picked from among the large numbers of experienced men who will be available by the time these giants go into regular service. and/eliabmty of air transport, attempt to. cope with con ditions which are, and will always be, a little too much f*/the prefcnt-day conception of an aircraft. ^paB5r?m that the planners get their own way and that le^daBte aire put into service, who shall we choose to take lajol^lSrlafge of them in the air? The youngish, experi- ed con/mander who may have dash enough to attempt le TBO-dtfficult once too often, but who is not easily tired or bea^Kn by circumstances, and who has the good eye sight and quick reactions of : the medium-young man who has lived a vigorous and healthy life?, or the more elderly type of man, still hale and hearty like the # captains of ships, who knows caution, who has travelled tens of thousands of hours in the air, and yet who may not have that final nicety of judgment and confident dash of the fairly young man? I have known airline pilots with ten thousand hours to their credit in various types who were, in my own perhaps inexperienced opinion, lacking in true airmanship and quite lacking in the ability to deal with strange situa tions in new types. Men who brought aircraft in with a shaky series of throttle-bursts to an appalling landing, and men who, in over-caution, have brought them in at ridicu lously high approach speeds while motoring, in fear of over-shooting at tree-top height, and have then floated all the way down the runway. On the other hand, I have known young men, with comparatively few hours to their credit, who have handled big four-engined aircraft for the first time with a fine admixture of caution and confidence, and who have not been put out or flustered by the most unpleasant situations. And, of course, I have known experienced pilots who behaved just as one would expect them to behave, and inexperienced pilots who have been over-confident and yet nervy. Critical Passengers Thousands of the passengers of the future will be men and women who know what it is all about and who will not be taken in by examples of bad judgment; who will-A not, in fact, allow themselves to be flown twice by any pilot who has put up a bad exhibition. The-passengers are going to be critical and even frightened in the future unless the very best hand-picked pilots are used. And how are they going to be picked? They can, in the end, only be picked by other pilots, though a bunch of really good psychiatrists should be able to whittle down the original entry. The nervy or slow-thinking or unintelligent type of man can usually be picked out quite easily on the ground, but there are people who can show none of these qualities until they are faced with real difficulties and dangers, and there are others who would not pass a board of " experts," but who would come out very well when faced with a real emergency. Of course, the projected giants will have a large crew, every possible aid to navigation, both general and detailed, and, maybe, automatic approach devices, but we still know that, until design has been radically changed, one man as, when it comes to the point, vested with the power of life and death with an aircraft of any size and type. One single person is in charge during and immediately after the take-
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