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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0934.PDF
•486 FLIGHT MAY 4TH, 1944 CORRESPONDENCE and it necessarily follows that, even with the same charac teristics, it will be proportionately more dangerous. As Capt. Brice points out, a Liberator is less tricky than a Hudson. But, for that matter, a Boeing Fortress II is an easier aircraft than either; a Mosquito is less bother, on and near the ground, than a Tomahawk; and a Boston is more straight forward than a Mitchell..,. The Hudson has done amazingly good work, but I do np*'"think that even the Lockheed people will pretend that tnis aircraft, or its forerunner, the 14, were "easy" aircraft. Yet, with limited experience as first pilot in each, I would rather bring a Brtffkon into a strange airfield in bad weather than I would/k Liberator. As for the "airy individuals," I was thinfing of#he general run of professional pilots between 1930 anoV»*94o; the major airline companies naturally had the pick of available talent. But this talent was still drawn from almost the only availably pool—that of ex-Short-Service R.A.F. pilots—and a prosr^R- less Short Service commission d^F not usually attract thJIsort of man who might make a sober and careful transpojfejjKt. Let us hope that after this war flying will be^treatj^T^jp^the general public as a sound and worth-while J&TeerJor all^fit, energetic and courageous individuals—andj not M a mildfer queer occupation for men who, in their late] 'ttevM, were bores misfits in an unexciting world. \ INJpICATOR."/ INFORMATION I*AKA«Bw • R.O.C. Pledged/to SecMcy ^"m**^ I WOULD like to lake this opyortunj^ oi replying to your correspondent " Ex-A.T.C. ^nd^^.A.F.," whose letter appeared in Flight of April 20th kjr Might I first point out that members ot the R.O.C. are required to sign the Official Secrets Act which should thereby prevent them from circulating official information ? A.T.C. cadets are not required to sign any such document, and are under no obligation to keep to themselves any information of a secret nature which they may have acquired. Leakages of information have, for the most part, been of secret aircraft types, and, believe it or not, the R.O.C. has often a more limited access to information of this type than • the A.T.C. Indeed, on several occasions the first that a local R.O.C. Post has heard of secret aircraft has been from A.T.C. sources. Moreover, Air Ministry recognition handbooks are often left at the disposal of cadets to read at their leisure. > G. A. B. SHORT. Few Young Men in R.O.C. I" WOULD like to be allowed to rebut the allegation made by A your correspondent "Ex-A.T.C. and R.A.F." (Flight, April 20th) that the Royal Observer Corps is guilty of leakage of information obtained through "having access to unpublished data, probably by leason oi the large number of young men in its ranks." In point of fact the Corps has exceedingly few '' young covering being stressed skin and carrying a de-icer strip on the leading edge. The elevators are fabric-covered. Main planes are of stressed-skin construction with fabric- covered ailerons, only the port aileron carrying a trimming tab and compensating through the balancing cable. Both front and rear spars are of a modified Warren girder construc tion, the outermost portions of both spars having the bracing struts arranged to form a simple triangulated structure. Ribs are of triangulated form except at fuel-tank location*, where they are of special =nape to admit the tanks, of which there are three on each side of the fuselage, as shown in the special drawing. The wing tips are detachable, and a de-icing strip is fitted on the leading edge of each wing and between the engine nacelles. The nacelles are also of stressed-skin construction and house the oil tanks for each of the 1,000 h.p. nine-cylinder Wright radial engines. The cantilever axle type undercarriage retracts into the inboard nacelles, but the wheels are not fully enclosed. The nacelles also house the turbo-supercharger installation for each of the engines, and an excellent illustration of the layout is shown by the diagrammatic sketch. Originally the waste j?ate on each engine installation was individually controlled r/y the pilot and maintained at a mean men " in its ranks below the age of 40, and in any case if it is intended to argue that younger men are more likely to conjJJ| "security" indiscretions than older men, surely there is another Corps which has many thousands of much younger men who should therefore be held more likely to be blameworthy. Since the matter has been raised I may say that the R.O.C. has, in fact, no special access to any sources of secret informa tion, and does not even enjoy the privileges accorded to, say, the A.T.C., who are taken 011 frequent routine visits to R.A.F. stations, being allowed flights in and inspection of operational types of aircraft, with all the attendant opportunities for gathering information helpful to efficiency. It may surprise your correspondent to know that I, as an average memb/rof the R.O.C. with over 45 years' service, have only once affide a visit to a R.A.F. station, have never had a flight aan have never been inside an operational aircraft. Siarethe very early days, when the duties of the Corps were merely to report the presence of aircraft and not to know any- Wning of them, right up to the present time, the R.O.C. has been under the disadvantage of not being included in the distribution of "hot" aircraft "gen" supplied to certain other Services as a matter of course. Consequently, it is the case to-day that aircraft are frequently in the air whose data and even names are a mystery to the Corps but which, curiously enough, do not appear similarly wrapped in mystery to many youths and small boys—I wonder why ?—" I don't know, mind, but it makes yer think! " OBSERVER. Hertfordshire. SORTING OUT THE SNAGS Theory Without Practice THE letter in your March 30th issue signed W. D. Black burn is a perfect example of theoretical knowledge as learnt from a book without any practical experience to back it up. Unfortunately, there are far too many of these theoretical blokes about. The practical ones are so busy sorting out the snags that they rarely have time to rush into print about it. Theoretically, we all agree, there should be no snags. Aero nautical equipment is tested and proved before it goes into service. But in practice there is hardly an item that does not tend to pack up, sometimes as soon as ever it is fitted to an aircraft. Frequently vibration may be responsible—it is a fact that very few testing rigs include the vibration factor, and in any case it would be practically impossible to reproduce the exact vibration characteristics of the aircraft. That is why the final test is alwa 's given to the complete aircraft, and it is surprising how many ground-tested and O.K.'d instru ments show up as faulty in the air test. No, Mr Blackburn, before trying to tell a writer with bags of practical experience, like "Indicator," that he is talking through his hat, you had better acquire at least an equaf amount of practical experience yourself. We have spent the last four years as production test pilots, sorting out snags, and we have often seen "a bunch of experts scratching their heads for hours, etc., etc." The said experts include chief designers, chief engineers and chief A.I.D. inspec tors, none of whom could, like Mr. Blackburn, be termed semi skilled diagnosticians. TWO PRODUCTION TEST PILOTS. position by an hydraulic governor unit. This has now been superseded by an electronic synchronisation system which allows all engine boosts to be controlled, governed and set by a single selector unit in the cockpit. The selector unit has provision for calibrating each engine to compensate for small differences in r.p.m. and boost. A unit known as a " Pressure- trol" registers the carburettor intake pressure, and fluctua tions actuate a potentiometer, which, under the "super vision " of a centrifugal governor unit, operates the waste gate motor. Pressuretrols, governors and waste gate motors are mounted in each nacelle, the whole being controlled by the selector unit under the pilot's hand. This system is certainly an advance in simplifying the pilot's job; he makes his r.p.m. selection with the airscrew pitch con trols in the normal way, but the throttles are kept wide open throughout, and the amount of supercharge is selected and governed by the single "tuning" knob. Not only is this done, but the exact degree of boost for each engine is syn chronously obtained at the same time. The Flying Fortress is now. after its nine years of develop ment,^, very good military aircraft, well liked by its crews, sturdy of build and eminently capable of both taking a*d handing out great punishment. V FLYING FORTRESS (R-17G) (Continued from page 477)
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