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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0010.PDF
NAVAL AIRCRAFT ton also mentioned the Blackburn Firebrand, with its double flap. Another interesting example of the use of high-lift devices was the Super- marine S. 24/37 which developed a maximum lift coefficient of 2.6, en- gine-off, or about 50 per cent greater than a Spitfire. This was achieved by the use of full-span Handley Page slots in conjunction, with a part-span slotted flap. Engine on, a lift coeffi- cient of 3.9 was measured in flight. The slats increased the permissible angle of incidence for maximum lift. The wing was therefore provided with variable-incidence gear which enabled the fuselage to stay at a normal inci- dence when the increased wing inci- dence and high lift were being used for landing. A successor to the. Sea Otter was being built embodying the variable- incidence principle. The design max. lift coefficient, engine-off, was 3.5. Finally, a torpedo was an awkward thing to stow on a moderate-sized air- craft and it was a nice point to decide FLIGHT whether to leave it outside so as to have the best performance when it had been dropped, or put it inside to have a cleaner machine when it was stowed. Mr. Clifton did not think that the torpedo would be superseded for a long time and we must put up with the trouble of stowing it. A pos- sible rival to the torpedo was the rocket-propelled bomb. The Future Concluding his lecture, Mr. Clifton indulged in a little speculation as to the future of naval aircraft. Two developments, he thought, were likely to have a profound effect, namely, the atom bomb, and the jet-propelled rocket or missile directed by radio. The atom bomb conferred a special advantage on the Navy, for warships and carriers were really mobile fort- resses and airfields, and their mobility made them more difficult to knock out. Radio-directed missiles might eventually displace the piloted naval aircraft for defensive or offensive pur- poses. In these circumstances the carrier would become a battleship with a store of expendable missiles, and a complicated radio "brain" for direct- T. R. THOMAS An Appreciation by Sir Frederick Handley Page EVERYONE connected with civil avia-tion will learn with the greatest regret of the sudden death of T. R.Thomas, the Secretary of the Air Regis- tration Board. I first met Thomas when he was JointSecretary of the Joint Advisory Com- mittee of Lloyd's Register and theBritish Corporation Register, a com- mittee which dealt-with the inspectionof private owners' aircraft and the re- newal of their certificate of airworthi-ness. Later, in 1936, when the recom- mendations of the Gorell Committee wereadopted, Thomas was the secretary of the small committee of operators, manu-facturers and insurers, of which ] was Chairman, who, with official representa-tives, drafted the constitution of what is now the Air Registration Board. The Air Registration Board came intobeing in 1937 and Thomas was appointed its first Secretary, a post which he filleduntil his untimely death last week. Thomas has left us at the compara-tively young age of 53, loved and mourned by all who knew him. Hisclosest friends and associates, and he himself, knew this was likely to hap-pen suddenly, but we all preferred to Ignore the inevitable. His greatness washoused in the frailest of bodies, and during the past twenty years he spentmuch of his time literally fighting for breath. I have seen him on many occa-sions enter a meeting and for some minutes be incapable of speech becauselie had climbed half a dozen steps. In spite of this great physical handicap. Ihave never known him shirk any duty— and he has encountered many toughpropositions in the creation and opera- tion of the Air Registration Board 1 know of no one who could draft a ck-frer memorandum setting out funda-mental principles and expanding policy decisions into executive detail. TheBoard and British civil aviation owe^ a great debt of gratitude to Sir MaunceDenny, the first Chairman, and T. R. Thomas, the first Secretary, for thesound way in which the organization has been built up and the long hours whichthey have spent in its initial administra- tion, to say nothing of the difficultieswhich were met at the onset of the war when the Air Registration Board wasonly just beginning to feel its feet. One never thought of the Board without see-ing T. R. Thomas and his characteristic signature, and except for his love forHy-fis'hing, and a stolen hour in his little workshop, he gave his whole to theBoard. Many have cause to bless T. R. Thomas for his help and kindness, andhe and his wife were responsible for many charitable acts. After the tragicloss of their only son in 1941, the Thomases adopted a small boy who isnow 11 years of age. Tom Roberts Thomas was born on the1st ot March, 1893 in Glasgow. He entered the shipbuilding industry andserved his apprenticeship with the Sun- derland Shipbuilding Company, and tooka degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at King's College.Newcastle, in 1912. He was awarded an 1851 Exhibition which he held at Har-land and Wolff, Belfast. Thomas subse- quently worked on light cruisers at Fair-field, Govan, and in the submarine yard of Messrs. Cammell Laird and Co.,Birkenhoad. In 1916 he joined the British Corpora-tion Register of Shipping and Aircraft, and almost at the same time joined theRoyal Engineers He served in Palestine and was responsible for building andmaintaining transport on the Nile. As a result of his service he spent much timein hospital and was invalided out of the JANUARY 2ND, 1947 ing them and for detecting the approach of hostile objects. The obvious advantages of mobility might lead us in the direction of giant flying boats, capable of long-range taxying, and of taking to the air when . attacking or in danger of being attacked. Refuelling and re-arming from remote bases specially chosen and built to resist atom bomb attack, a fleet of such craft might converge and deal a devastating reply in a short space of time to a threat from any quarter. These flying boats might in- crease their operational range and endurance by travelling as surface ships. The fundamental reason for this was that the best L/D we could |f «1 hope for from an aircraft was aboi* f > 15, whereas at low speed v aid attain 100 from a ship. Th er, and hence fuel load, to travt A to B was inversely propor i to L/D. The day might come when the Royal Navy would consist primarily of air- craft with possibly some attendant submarines for servicing and refuelling purposes. Would the men who manned these aircraft * be known as sailors? Army in 1919 and returned to the BritishCorporation the following year. He was sent to London in 1927 by the BritishCorporation to organize their aircraft committee, and in 1932, was appointedJoint Secretary of the Joint Aviation Advisory Committee of Lloyd's Registerand the British Corporation Register. Thomas's death is a great loss toBritish civil aviation, but to-day our thoughts are those of the deepest sym-pathy with his widow in her great bereavement. DEATH OF DOROTHY SPICER WITH the death of Mrs. RichardPearse, who was killed, with her husband, when the F.A.M.A. York air-liner in which they were travelling to Buenos Aires crashed near Rio de Janeiroon December 3rd, there passes one of the best-known women in British aviationduring the 1930s. Before her marriage in 1938, Mrs.Pearse was Miss Dorothy Spicer, and although she held both "A" and "B"pilots' licences, it was in the role ot an aircraft engineer that her name camewidely before the public. This was when she was associated with Miss Pauline AGower in the operation of an air charter A concern and had the distinction of beicg' /the first woman (and for some time the only woman) to be a fully qualified"ground engineer," as they were then called. Miss Gower and Miss Spicer ;ttone period travelled about the country with their own air-circus (the formerusing chiefly a three-seater Spartan bi- plane for joy-riding), and this all-womanventure captured the headlines in the Provinces wherever they went. Mr. Richard Pearse was on his way totake up the post of South American representative of British Aviation Ser-vices, Ltd., having previously been with the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
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