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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0128.PDF
FLIGHT JANUARY 17TH, 1946 CORRESPONDENCE The hditor aoes not hout hunsei] responsible /or the views expressed by correspondents. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily lor publication, must in alt cases accompany letters. R.A.F. SLANG Who Tore Off the First Strip ? A FRIEND who is compiling a glossary of R.A.F. slang isanxious to track down the derivation of " tearing off a strip." I have offered him my own theory, but it would beinteresting to know if other readers have encountered the phrase at any even earlier date. In the middle of 1940 I had a Wing Commander whosefavourite threat was: "I'll have you on a strip of carpet." In the course 01 a few weeks this became "I'll have you ona narrow strip of carpet, then " I'll tear you off a narrow strip of carpet," and finally "I'll tear you off a strip." I amwondering if this was, indeed, the birth of this remarkable phrase. It would be equally interesting to try to track down theorigin of equally popular expressions, such as "gen," "to bind," "clueless," and so forth. W. H. BROWN. LIGHT AIRCRAFT Only One Briton to Challenge U.S. Types •"""THOSE who have the future of British light aircraft atJ- heart can hardly fail to have noticed that whereas a score of American firms are advertising a wide range of attractivemodels in the 65 to 125 h.p. classes, there is still no sign of any serious competition from the British manufacturer in thisfield with the solitary exception of the Taylorcraft Auster. I have been told that British aircraft firms are only allowedto make these light types if they export something like 80 per cent, of their output, and if this be true then it might wellbe the explanation. Frankly, we have never been able seriously to compete with the U.S. in this particular field, and it wouldappear the Government is determined that we never shall. The number of overseas purchasers who will pay about twiceas much for a British light aircraft as they would have to pay for an American of comparable size cannot be very great—even if "there's one born every minute." REBEL. ACCIDENT CAUSES Taking Advantage of Present Navigational Aids DURING the last few months, in official and " bar " circles, agreat man ? views have been aired on flying accidents and the public naturally began to take more notice when therelaxation of censorship permitted details of accidents to be reported. To dwell on past accidents is morbid unless usefullessons can be learnt, but I feel anxious to put a few thoughts into writing. My remarks in the main concern " unnecessary "accidents to passenger and freight aircraft. It would seem that accident classification is very difficultas the occurrence ot two identical incidents is almost unknown. A very large proportion ol all accidents in the air seem basic-ally attributable to pilot error, with a secondary aggravating factor responsible for upsetting the pilot. Trying for a momentfurther to break down the causes of accidents, this secondary factor will usually come under one of three main headings—(i) navigation, (ii) weather, or (iii) technical troubles. Assuming that every possible effort is being made throughgood maintenance and the uso of the best equipment to mini- mise (i), items (ii) and (Hi') remain. Weather and navigationproblems have been on our minds since before Pontius was a pilot and there is still little stigma in standing by the oldaxiom—"No see, No fly." The crux of the whole matter, to my mind, is practically summed up by that little proviso,and accident reports on almost even- occasion could be briefly summarised as "He pranged because he could not see." Having reached some sort of a conclusion, preventivemeasures can be considered. To fly when unable to see out entails two things, instrument flying and aids to navigation.Shortcomings in either are an invitation to disaster. Anyone who has read this letter so far may now say "What, all thatpreamble to reach two conclusions' we already know about? " Well, the ball can fairly be pitched straight back at them.If we know about these things, why do we read all too often: "Bomber Hits Mountain Side" (aside—He didn't know hisexact position) or '' Pilot Loses Control in Bad Weather— Crashes on House " (aside—Instrument flying not so hot, eh?). As far as navigation is concerned fewer and fewer accidentson our airlines should now be attributable to loss of bearings. Navigator training has been very good for seve^.1 years andwe have large numbers of excellent R.A.F. navigators avail- able. There are radio and radar aids in plentyj thanks towartime development. It is to be hoped that they have been installed or are being at present on all our trunk routes.By using radar such as Gee or Loran the risk of total radio failure, followed by loss of bearings due to bad weather onsome of our tropical routes, should no longer be serious. ., With regard to instrument flying, there must be, I thiTiK,room for quite a lot of improvement in standard of ability. In particular, regular practice in blind flying with one ormore instruments blanked off on the panel is essential. Proper study of the effects of bad weather on the instruments is alsocalled for. For example, all is not lost if one inadvertently blunders into a cu. nim. cloud, but unintelligent use ofinstruments in such circumstances is liable to result in a "pretty shaky do." By all means, as the book says, "Flyround cu. nim," but having on some occasion got into it what will happen to the instruments ? Remember to expectyour altimeter to wind up as you go up although the aircraft is flying in about the level altitude (i.e.. don't put the nosedown and start to dive). Expect your A.S.I, to drop back due to severe icing (i.e., don't push the nose still fartherdown thinking you have stalled and depending upon a heated pitot head not to have iced up in extreme conditions). Yourartificial horizon will most likely hold out and together with primary instruments and combined use of compasses and direc-tional gyro there is a very good chance of keeping control on a fairly even keel and with some idea of direction. Cumulo-nimbus cloud must have been responsible for anumber of accidents, but the difficulties of flying in it or any other turbulent conditions in a large aircraft are by no meansalways insurmountable and the cloud never covers a very large continuous area.On the whole, I feel, it will be surprising if our accident rate does not show a steady improvement as, in fact, it hasalready started to do. The sudden public awareness of flying accidents had led many people to think of the past year or twoas black ones for British air transport. This is quite unjust. as recently-quoted figures from a Transport Command authorityshow. DRIVER, AIRFRAME. NATIONALISED AIRWAYS The Value of Competition, if Any I AM rather surprised at the attitude Flight is adopting withreference to the proposed nationalisation of our air trans- port. In your editorials and articles you are taking up theattitude that if nationalisation fails, then blame the Govern- ment; if nationalisation succeeds, then it will be due solely tothe personnel who ran the new organisation. This means that whatever the fate of the new organisation, you are sure tohave been right—although you hope all the time that it will fail. Your arguments against nationalisation are very uncon-vincing. The main point you make is that the "competitive" spirit will be lacking, and this will lead to slackness andinefficiency. Surely, we shall have plenty of competition along, our route:- from American and other airlines? Considering t$teAtlantic routes alone, there will be American, French and Canadian airliners in the picture, and that will surely give usplenty of competition, without having our effort split up into small companies operating the same routes. You will then say that we should not necessarily have dupli-cation, and that each concern would operate in its own sphere. The next- step would then be to form a monopoly, and weshould have the airways controlled by a small* group of capitalists. Nationalisation merely transfers the control froma capitalist group to the State. The success of any enterprise depends almost entirely upon its paid staff—in this case thesuccess depends upon aircrew, ground staff, and management— and I am sure that they will not be less efficient when workingfor the State than when working for a capitalist board of directors. Will a man work less hard when he knows that theprofits will be turned back into the common pool instead of going into the directors' pockets? Let us have an all-out effort in support of the new airways,
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