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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0324.PDF
2O6 FLIGHT MARCH IJTH, 1947 of suspected elevator overbalance, which necessitated the precautionary withdrawal of the Vikings from B.E.A. services. In achieving their primary aim of investigating and curing the defect in the shortest pos- sible time, the tests have been most successful, and to a great extent this is due to the concerted efforts of the Vickers test and design teams and B.E.A.'s chief pilot, to all of whom great credit is due. With the reapproval of Vikings for service an unfortunate incident can be forgotten, and the icing tests considered as an important and overdue research. Arising from the tests of anti-icing and de-icing is proof that the fluid-type system can do its job ade- quately, but only with flow rates greatly in excess of those previously laid down by the A.R.B. and now up for revision. In this sense the de-icing problems were not particular to the Viking, upon which attention was focused only because the aerodynamic effects of ice formations, with which the system as originally fitted could not deal, might have rendered it extremely difficult to control. Fortunately, practical icing tests are to continue until every scrap of information with regard to rates of fluid flow and ice accretion has been obtained. The industry as a whole is now to benefit from the researches of a single company, but would it not have been preferable to have avoided the troubles, delays and blow to prestige by national research at an earlier stage? Forward the "Fifty-two"!V ISITING Northrop Aircraft, Inc., for a confer- ence "with the company's engineers, leaders in U.S. aviation research, and developers of the flying wing design which results in far more efficient airplanes," Mr. John Cunningham, de Havilland's chief test pilot, is reported to have expressed himself in the following terms: "Although the British hold world speed records and are pacing jet engine development, they are trailing the United States in research on the new and highly efficient flying wing airplanes." "The CONTENTS Outlook - The Gyrosyn Compass - - - - - Here and There Mission to India—II ...... Hunting Aerosurveys Nene Lancastrian - - - Ice on the Viking - Air Estimates Civil Aviation News Correspondence - Service Aviation ...... - 205 - 207 - 210 - 212 - 215 a - 218 - 220 - 222 - 225 - 226 British," he is further credited with saying, "are stil in the planning stage on a 90,0001b flying wing," wherei at the Northrop plant he examined the B-35 all-wing bomber built for an overload gross weight of more than 105 tons. There are no greater admirers of the big Northrop than those British designers who are familiar with the problems of flying-wing design. While none of these can claim credit for a " wing" approaching the B-35 iR size, Armstrong-Whitworth have produced, to the designs of Mr. John Lloyd, a machine which in pure research value must rival the Northrop, embodying as it does such features as jet propulsion, boundary layer control by suction and a novel control system which may well prove a major advance in flying-wing design. The trials of this machine—-"the A.W.52—have been delayed by incidental troubles in no way concerned with its basic design, whereas the first B-35 has been "flying since last summer, the second is nearly ready and a jet- powered version is well advanced. Nevertheless, the "52," backed by exhaustive glider research, must be considered one of the most significant aeronautical de- velopments for many years, and its accomplishments may greatly enhance our international reputation now- founded so largely on the world's speed record and the advanced state of jet development. The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around." l! ANCIENT MARINER: After ten years' service in hiequipment. This scene at Felixstowe rec temperate and torrid zones, the Short Sunderland remains standard R.A.F.oleridge's lines describing the ghastly voyage through the ice. It
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