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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0654.PDF
FLIGHT MARCH 30TH, 1944 The Flying Jtoai A Reply to Mr. Pollitt : Loading FreiglpNot Difficult with Proper Equipment : The 0u^sUenj/^ Lateral Stability By W. P. HEMP, IN the issue of Flight of February 24th, Mr.^Pollitt con tinues his argument in favour of the 1; post-war civil aviation, and asks the ques4on: "WJ the Flying Boat Survive? " It most assuredly will arr- vive but, of course, so will the large civil larfa macrfne. Each will have its own sphere, but the boa&hasymany advantages in particular cases. Mr. Pollitt states that "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," and that "Coastal Command" employ only, three types of flying boats against nine types of' land- planes." I would venture to say that had it not been / for the parsimonious attitude and vacillating policy off the responsible Government authorities in the two pre war years, which resulted in infinitesimal orders for flying boats, the situation, as regards the submarine warfare, would have been very different. Had there been hundreds instead of tens of Sunderlands available for patrol work, there is little doubt that hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping would have been saved. He then continues with the statement that '' only 25 per cent, of the British Overseas Airways fleet are flying boats." This is surely due to war conditions having made it impossible for British firms to develop or build suitable civilian aircraft, with the result that they had to draw largely on American machines, there being no British pas senger boats available^for them. This condition is, unfor tunately, likely to^continue for some time unless the industry is permitted to develop suitable water-borne air craft in time for the needs of the operating companies. Forced Landings The question of forced landings is raised, and the flota tion bags for land machines are cited as a good example of how a land machine can be kept afloat. This argument was suitably dealt with in the editorial comment in the same issue of Flight. There is no doubt that a boat has a greater chance of survival on the water than has the land machine, and even if it were to break up, quite obviously similar arrangements of air bags could be used to keep it afloat. He says in this connection that the '' Deutsche Luft Hansa were operating Dornier ' Wal' flying boats on the South Atlantic service between Bathurst and Natal, and during a period of two or three irs it was only necessary to make three forced landings at sea." This is given by him as an answer to my sug gestion that flying boats are safer for transoceanic work than the land machine. The mere fact that three safe forced landings were made reinforces the argument for the flying boat, as the future of civil aviation depends on its safety. What would have been the impression created in the public mind had these three machines been land- planes? One can well imagine the pre-war Press splashing headlines of "Another Transatlantic Air-liner Lost." Freight Loading Emphasis is laid in Mr. Pollitt's article on the difficultj^jp of loading freight into a flying bp^t, and this point was illustrated by a sketch showing what purported to be a floating crane loading a crate into a hatch in the hull, about 25ft. behind the e.g.! Properly designed cranes moored in the correct manner, so that the flying boat and crane pontoon always remain in the same relative position one to the other, should not present any difficulty. One must be a water-man with plenty of experience of small craft to appreciate how simple such, an operation would be. On the question of lateral stability Mr. Pollitt argues that, because the undercarriage of the land machine is three or four times as wide as the planing bottom of the hull of the boat it is much jnore stable. Here, I think, he makes his greatest mistake, as he says, with regard to wing-tip floats, '' that these only serve their purpose (as stabilisers) when the boat is at rest''—if this were so, wing-tip floats would obviously be made in the most efficient aerodynamical form, whereas, as everyone knows, they are designed largely for hydrodynamical efficiency; in fact, their planing bottom is, in general, of the same form as the bottom of the main boat hull. One of the illustrations indicates my point—this shows a wing-tip float acting as a stabiliser while the boat Is under way. I have at times watched with considerable trepidation large land machines landing on a concrete strip in a cross- wind, and my heart has been in my mouth as one wheel gradually rose in the air while the opposite wing tip got nearer and nearer the ground, until the pilot could get sufficient control to bring it back to level again. Gener-i ally speaking, such conditions would not occur with ttf#" This photograph of a Short Sunderland shows the effective width of the " undercarriage " as measured between the wing-tip floats.
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