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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0005.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEKLY IN THE WORLD .• FOUNDED 1909 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREr SMITH, M.B.E. War Correspondent JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. COVENTRY: 8-10, CORPORATION ST. BIRMINGHAM, 2: GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATIONS T. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Coventry 5210. Telephone: Midland 297 1 (5 liners). Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (3S lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE. 26B, RENFIELD ST. Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester. Telegrams : Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. Telephone: Central 48S7. No. 1880. Vol. XLVII. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. January 4th, 1945. Thursdays. One Shilling. Outlook Amphibious AircraftF ROM the earliest days of flying, or at least from the time when the possibility °f gating a flying machine into the air had been conclusively demon- strated, men have toyed with the idea of amphibious operation. This is natural enough, for nature's example is ever before us in the shape of water birds which use the land and the sea with about equal facility. So far, gjiowever, man has not succeeded in emulating nature ^lithout incurring a great deal more extra weight than \1sat represented in water birds by the webs between their toes. In this issue '' Indicator'' discusses some of the pros and cons of amphibious aircraft, and comes to the con- clusion that the class will always be so much heavier than its landplane equivalent that it is unlikely it will ever come into general use. We also publish, somewhat appropriately, a brief article on a new American amphi- bian project which has merits, but the estimates for which appear to err on the optimistic side in the matter of weight. Granted that for certain work it may be well worth while to sacrifice something for the ability to use water and land at will, it must always be the aim of designers to keep down the extra weight to an absolute minimum. We know of only one type in which there is practically no such extra weight: the helicopter. This can use plain cylindrical bags both on land and water. The Fairey Aviation Company many years ago reduced the weight problem by the simplest form of undercarriage, a plain wheel in the bottom of each float. This scheme workec\ but it made the floats very "dirty" on the water, md it increased the take-off run quite a bit. The problems are difficult, but there should be a fairly rich harvest for the firm which succeeds in reducing the payload sacrifice to tolerable proportions. PreparednessC HICAGO has taught us several things, at least so it is to be hoped, if we have the good sense to profit by the salutary lesson. The first was the extent to which the U.S. delegates came to the con- ference fully prepared down to the last detail. We left behind in this country the Director of Civil Aviation, whose task presumably became that of sitting at the end of a telephone to answer all the queries shot at him when information was wanted at the Chicago end of the line ; or it may be that every morning when he arrived at his office (if indeed he ever left it) there was a stack of cable queries awaiting him. America secured the right to send her commercial aircraft to any country which is willing to accept them under a bilateral arrangement, and American aircraft constructors were already prepared to tell potential future customers what will be offered in the way of civil types -as soon as conditions permit. A lesson in pre- paredness which we should heed. Boeing's Strato- criiiscr, described in this issue, is one of the most impressive, not only on account of the claims made for it, but because the prototype military version of the commercial version of the Superfortress (it sounds a bit complicated, but that is what it is) has already flown. This machine was carefully timed to be announced during the Chicago Conference, as were several other types. Lockheed announced the Saturn, a twin-engined 14-passenger machine cruising at over 200 m.p.h., and stated quite frankly that it will carry on the traditions of the Electra and is '' expected to be extremely popular among airline operators of European and other countries whose services are over short distances with high fre- quency of flights." A great point is made of the economy of the design, -such as by having horizontal
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