FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0131.PDF
JANUARY 17TH, 1946 FLIGHT 73 CORRESPONDENCE and let there be co-operation from top to bottom, with less of this cantankerous attitude towards the scheme. Success will not be achieved by adopting a sullen face and placing one's self in such a position that whatever the outcome one is right. S. B. STUBBS. [Our correspondent appears to do us rather less than jus- tice. He is entitled to his views, but he does not seem to think we are entitled to ours. He is completely wrong when he states that we hope all the time that the nationalisation scheme will fail. We can assure him that no one will be more pleased than ourselves if the scheme succeeds, and if it does we shall gladly admit that we were wrong. As for the "competitive spirit," we are aware that there will i^jfcemore than sufficient competition from our American friends, but—and this is the whole point of our argument—with only one British Corporation competing with the Americans there will be no way of knowing whether its service is being operated as efficiently as it could and should be. With two British companies working in rivalry we should know which of the two showed the greater enterprise and efficiency. The United States recognises this fact, and Pan American efforts to secure a monopoly have failed. All we are concerned with is that British airlines should be the best and most efficient in the world, and surely the time when they are being planned is the right time for stating one's views; afterwards it will be too late. Readers who hold views different from ours are quite at liberty to express them in these columns.—ED.] COCKPIT CLASSIFICATION Trade Approval for Colour Analysis I WOULD like to make the following points in answer to" J. B." Flight, December 27th) and "R. L. B." (Flight, January 3rd) : (1) "Splashes of colour" and "indescribable chaos" don't come into the picture. I have only suggested a thin coloured border (Jin. at the most) round the particular group. This has actually been tried in an Oxford, an aircraft which needs little change to fit the scheme. The effect was not that feared by your correspondents. Rather, it puts the instruments "on parade" in smart squads. A similar (but limited) idea can be seen in some American aircraft. (2) I agree that standardisation is impossible, but this w'as the very point I stressed. Classification (with or without colour) could be a uniform system, and it is so elastic that it is feasible in any type of aircraft. Scale drawings of representa- tive types confirm this. (3) From the designer's point of view I agree with " J. B."— but because of lines, not of splashes. In any case, colour analysis of a cockpit as done in the Flight drawings would soon show up any faults. As a matter of interest, the design staff of two big aircraft firms have vetted the suggestion and deemed it workable from their point of view. So far as service aircraft are concerned, however, the matter is not in their hands. (4) Most pilots agree about the grouping, but many shy at the colour. Once the kaleidoscopic effect (to quote " R. L. B.") is dispelled for what I actually suggest—a thin coloured line—then perhaps the suggestion is more palatable. The colour is only a label to any group, and is not so very frightening in moderation; we all follow the amber light for Paddington ! GORDON WHITE, A.R.Ae.S. BOOK REVIEWS " R.A.F. Coastal Command Leads the Invasion " : by Sqn.Ldr. M. C. D. Wilson and Fit. Lt. A. S. L. Robinson; Jarrolds, 16s. THIS is a good book marred only by the delay in production.It was written while the war was still in progress and the hold-up has been chiefly on account of the strict censorship imposed on Coastal Command. -The two authors were in the Public Relations Department of the Command and, by virtue of this, in a unique position to collect authentic information and select outstanding photographs. . It "is, however, no mere recount of the war as fought by Coastal Command. Running through the book is a thread of intelligent comment and the whole is a skilfully woven fabric with the war phases making up the main features and a wealth of detail to complete the pattern. : Anyone who served in Coastal Command, whether he was engaged in anti-U-±>oat work or in one of the anti-shipping strike squadrons, can read this book and say, " That is what I did in the 1939-45 war.' . The thrill of hearing the words "Action stations-—Bomb doors open" come over the inter- com, is captured for any aircrew member to relive as he reads the graphic accounts of aircraft versus U-boat flights. "The Civil Air War," by C. G. Grey. The Harborough Pub- lishing Co., Ltd., price 12s. 6d. ALWAYS interesting, generally amusing and occasionally asvitally important as C. G. G.'s writings can be. The Civil Air War nevertheless leaves the reader wondering what it is really all about. Treated as a knowledgeable and chatty if ^*metimes repetitive tour through air transport matters, the book is outstanding; as a semi-serious history of world and Empire air transport it is, when read with caution, useful; but, perhaps because C. G. G., after all his years in aviation, can see so many sides to so many questions, it is difficult to identify any really definite line of political or operational opinion. Nevertheless, The Civil Air War should be read by everyone who is interested in air transport matters, and certainly by the bureaucrats and others who are now to hold the reins. In this connection, it is a pity that the book was written before the change of Government, and that so much of it is conse- quently devoted to comment on a civil aviation White Paper which is now as dead as the proverbial'dodo. The war which the title describes is really in three parts; that with the air itself in all its dangers; that between national air transport interests; and that in our own home world of civil aviation. It would be impossible to agree more with C. G. G.'s opinions in the matter of flying danger and in the need for its reduction by every possible means, but one is by no means convinced, for instance, that slow stalling speeds, achieved by much slottery and 'flappery, will do much to reduce this • danger, and one is certainly not convinced that the danger of collision, other than with the ground, is seriously worth worry- ing about. At least twice in the course of the book C.G.G. speaks fiercely of the awful consequences following the filling of the air with aircraft driven by reckless people. In point of fact, flying does not provide much incentive to recklessness—and certainly not in the form in which it appears on the roads, where a definite exhilaration can be obtained from speed as such or from the successful completion of a "phenomenal avoidance." There is hardly anything in flying which can be considered as " thrill- ing "in the same sense. Nor can one take C. G. G.'s belief in airships too seriously. Given the necessary support twenty years ago, the commercial airship might possibly have come to stay, at least for certain purposes; but only experience would have shown whether such problems as those involved in icing and head-wind avoidance would have been insuperable in year-round operations over the entire world. , - Probably the best and most comforting story in the book from the point of view of British civil aviation is that about the Liberator and the York on the Indian Ocean crossing. - The regular service Liberator left West Australia while a York was still comfortably picketed down on the airfield. When the Liberator crew arrived at Colombo they were surprised and shocked to see the very same York bedded down and with its engine covers already in position. II. A. T. Aircraft of the Fighting Powers, Vol. VI, compiled by O. G.Thetford and C. B. May cock; edited by D. A. Russell. Harborough Publishing Co., 51s. 6d. Although the Powers have stopped fighting—well, more or less—the appearance of the sixth volume of Aircraft of the Fighting Powers is amply justified since the object of the series was to present a complete record of the military aircraft used by the warring nations during 1939-45. Thus the present volume, which covers 72 machines in all, introduces a number of types which, though not the very latest in existence, have been released for publication by the authorities since the pre- vious volume went to press. Even this necessarily leaves out some which were still on the secret list when Vol. VI was "put to bed," and thus a seventh volume is promised to complete the range towards the end of the year. The present volume adheres to the style and quality now familiar, and covers 26 British, 22 American, 15 Japanese, and nine German types. It includes a brief but copiously illus- trated history of the Air/Sea Rescue Service, and a comprn- dium of military aircraft markings.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
