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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 2072.PDF
OCTOBER 15TH, 1945 FLIGHT 427 Air Transport A Risumi of the Presidential Address by Sir Frederick Handley Page to the Institute of Transport IT might be symbolical that in this victory year theInstitute of Transport's President should be represen-tative of those interested in air transport and its future. Sir Frederick was not sure that air transport lay close to the hearts of some members of the Institute. For ex- ample, in 1938, the President, Mr. Szlumper, found it dif- ficult to foresee any great development of air transport in this country, and conjured up the fear of air-sickness as a deterrent. Only two years ago Sir William Wood, in his address, dismissed air transport in one sentence, though he con- sidered that the future of air transport '' at least for over- seas purposes and for difficult overland purposes, was obviously assured." Sir Frederick, therefore, hoped to redress the balance as an enthusiast whose '' faith was tempered with dis- cretion." They were meeting at a time of ferment in air transport. The war had compressed perhaps thirty years of normal technical development into less than six years. Many of these new technical developments promised "much for the future. Jet or gas-turbine propulsion and its numerous derivatives, rocket power, radar, laminar flow, and low- drag aerofoils, were all capable of diversion to serve the needs of the transport operator. A little farther from practical achievement was the controlled use of the atomic power. The amount of energy released by the '' fission '' of the uranium was approxi- mately 25 million million ft. /lb. per pound of the material. The only vehicle in which very high power of a normal kind had been developed was the rocket bomb. Here for a very short space of time (approximately one minute) over 750,000 h.p. was developed. The useful load was only about 2,000 pounds, so that the weight carried per h.p. was but a small fraction of what more normal forms of transport would carry for the same expenditure of power. Jet Prospects The jet with its relatively high consumption found its first and most useful application in high altitude high-speed operation and was in conseqflence the most suited for fighter * aircraft. Provided, however, that one flew high and fast enough jet-driven aircraft could be designed to have quite a useful range in spite of the high specific fuel consumption. The gas-turbine with its power mainly directed to drive a propeller, as with the reciprocating engine, offered for the commercial aircraft a more reasonable fuel consumption and gave some freedom from vibration. The noise and vibra- tion of the propeller would, however, still remain. Research had concurrently been directed to the devising of laminar flow (low-drag) wing, the head resistance of which was perhaps less than one-third of that of the older type of aerofoil, and also to the development of knife-edge aerofoils designed to penetrate the sonic region where drag Was so sharply increased by the shock wave. Whilst these developments were most suited to high speed aircraft, the commercial operator looked to the develop- ntygnt of aircraft more suited to traffic needs, and flying at a more normal speed, and to a reduction in the amount of power required per unit of load carried. Here the func- tional aspects of the design were of paramount importance. The operator longed for a flying pantechnicon with doors which could be thrown wide open. We saw here the transport aircraft developing in a dif- ferent way to the bomber; for passengers, as well as for freight, large volume-carrying capacity was needed. Thus, for a commercial load of 16,000 lb. in the four-engined commercial Hermes, passengers and cargo space of 3,080 cub. ft. compared with only 425 cub. ft. for the carriage of the same bomb weight in the Halifax. Of particular interest was the renewed attention given to the development of the flying wing in which normal wing and tail was replaced by a wing of swept-back plan form, a type which in the early days of his company was built and flown nearly 35 years ago. The elimination of the tail promised reduction in the fuselage drag and in the inter- ference drag set up by the interaction of wings and body. For the operator the tailless aircraft gave ease of entry at the rear. Important too was the saving in weight of the structures, as the freight could be distributed in cargo holds spanwise inside the wings. The wings there directly supported the load to be carried and were thus relieved of some of the stresses due to bending when the load was carried in the central fuselage. Sir Frederick then compared the Halifax with the V/1500 of 1918. Rapid Expansion ? What had happened, he said, was that in 25 years the aircraft had become denser. In spite of all improvements that were made, the weight of the structure increased dis- proportionately, and if very large aircraft were required, relief must be sought in a distribution of the cargo space and cargo spanwise across the wing. Could we expect a growth in the use of air transport comparable with that achieved in the history of surface transport ? Such transport had made a relatively slow start followed by a period of extremely rapid growth. Up to the outbreak of this war, airborne traffic had not entered an expansion period. During the war the entire resources of British civil avia- tion had necessarily to aid our war effort, but it was en- couraging to record, in spite of these difficulties, that in the year 1944-45, B.O.A.C. increased the passenger-miles and freight ton-miles by over 500 per cent, as compared with the results in 1940-41. Aircraft mileage flown in- creased about three times, and hours flown about two and a half times, so there was a considerable improvement in load carried per trip and also in cruising speed. On the Service side of aviation the figures of Transport Command for the month of June last were very impressive —130,448 passengers were carried, 22,484 tons of freight and 3,715 tons of mail. Over 20,000,000 miles were flown. Again, the statistics from Burma showed the large part that Transport Command played there. 14,800 passengers were carried, of which 4,500 were evacuated casualties. Freight amounted to 17,320 tons, and mail to 1,441 tons. Over 4,000,000 miles were flown. In Europe alone, from D-day to VE-day, 141,261 pas- sengers were carried, of whom 35,000 were prisoners of war. 122,075 evacuated casualties were also carried, and without one mishap despite flying in all weathers day and night. Freight and mail amounted to 38,940 short tons. If American statistics were given, later in his paper, in greater detail than British ones, this was due to the fact that American civil aviation continued to function during the war. In the U.S.A. in 1940, air travel amounted to 1,000,000,000 passenger-miles, and Pullman travel by rail to 7,000,000,000 passenger-miles. Inter-city coach travel by rail was just under 13,000,000,000 passenger-miles. Travel by bus was 11,000,000,000 passenger-miles. In 1942 air travel rose to 1,389,000,000 passenger-miles and in 1943 to 1,632,000,000. It was now about 3.000,000,000 passen- ger-miles. It had been forecast to reach 7,000,000,000 pas-
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