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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 1089.PDF
JULY 3RD, 1947 FLIGHT of radar aids has, of course, enabled the interception pro- cedure for flight refuelling to be brought near to perfection, and as far as the rendezvous is concerned there is little to worry about. The tanker, having appeared quite suddenly through a 10/ioths layer of stratus beneath us, formated neatly on our starboard side, "slightly below and astern of our aircraft. Before it arrived the refuelling engineer, who had taken up his station in the tail, had trailed our hauling line and grapnel and about 260ft of it now curved in a graceful arc behind us. From the harpoon-like gun of the tanker the projectile, with its contact line attached, shot out beneath and at about 90 deg to our hauling line, and immediately made contact with the pawl and grapnel. Electrical potential is neutralized at the moment of contact on a bare por- tion of both lines, and the two aircraft are then bonded together throughout ie operation It was only a matter .... minutes before the pipeline had been wound to our aircraft and secured in the coupling in the tail, the tanker had taken up its position above us, the system had been- flushed through with nitrogen to prevent fire, and 1,750 gallons of fuel were being gravity fed into our No. I'S and bomb bay tanks. The tanker formated with our aircraft at 18.30 G.M.T., contact was secured by 1&35 and con- tact broken by 18.55. The whole pro- cedure was over in twenty-five minutes and its perform- ance was so smooth that had I not been specially watching for it I should not have known anything unusual was hap- pening. However, I cannot help but feel that the normal passenger would be apprehensive when he saw the tanker inked by pipeline to his airliner, despite any reassurance ho may have received before the start of the journey. One method of overcoming this is to fly the tanker in line Tanker and receiver shown in their relative positions for making contact (above) and passing fuel. astern and pump the fuel through the pipeline. I under- stand that this method is under consideration. Apart from the refuelling process the rest of the trip was carried out normally. It took us about another eleven hours to reach Bermuda, where we landed at Kindley Field, a fine air base built by the Americans. It was certainly good to be on the ground again after such a long and gruelling trip. We were all very tired and very much appreciated our reception in Bermuda, where everything was laid on for our comfort by W/C. Dick Ralph, who is now B.S.A.A. Station Manager there. Considering the fact that it was 3 a.m. local time it was gratifying to proceed through Customs and currency departments with the mini- mum of red tape, and after an excel- lent breakfast of eggs and bacon we were soon asleep. We had been in the air over 19 hours and, while fully admitting that flight refuelling would give our present-day aircraft added endurance, I feel that a machine which is to fly non-stop over long routes should be especially designed for the purpose, with promenade decks, pas- senger radio, cinema screens and every possible aid to passenger contentment. After experiencing such a lengthy non- stop journey in the modified Lancaster I must confess that even an hour's stop at the Azores would have been indeed welcome. In Bermuda, where we stayed exactly 39 hours before making the return trip, I took the opportunity of visiting Darrells Island, the B.O.A.C. flying-boat base from which three Boeing boats leave every week for Baltimore. After inspecting one of these spacious aircraft I envied its passen- gers. I would gladly sacrifice speed for comfort—and that I think would be the reaction of most passengers travelling on a flight-refuelled service. NO RECORD ATTEMPT THIS "iEAR LAST week it was officially stated by the Ministry of Supplythat no attempt would be made to regain the air-speed record this year. This, it was added, was in keeping with our original policy, which has therefore been unaffected by the capture of the record by the American Shooting Star. Depend- ing upon how our new jet designs shape during the next few months, it is more than probable that an attempt will be made next year. The six-year-old Meteor is known, to be near its limit, but there is little doubt, as pointed out in .some detail last week, that if taken to a course near the Equator, and without any increase in power since it achieved its previous record of 616 m.p.h., it would be capable of bettering its own speed by 25 to 30 m.p.h. As alternatives to the Meteor there are the D.H. 108, which has been tested up to a Mach num- ber in excess of that which "ould be required to take the •cord, the Attacker and at .^ast one other design, at pre- sent on the secret list. In answer to questions, it was stated that the official opinion was that the benefit which NOVEL NAVIGATION RULERA N ingenious navigational ruler and protractor has beendesigned in Denmark by Aage Gade who is head of the Navigational Department of the Sports Flyve Klubben, Copen-hagen It is attractively produced in Perspex and, in addition to the usual ruler graduated in kilometres or miles for 1 in500,000 maps it has an unusually arranged protractor scale and in the centre portion, curves relating to speed and time. Each of the special functions of the device are simple tounderstand and are intelligently contrived. However, a diffi- culty is the need to move one or other scale in relation to andparallel to the track line on the map. The coloured markings are not sufficiently clear when backedby the standard coloured map and the risk of reading recip- rocals in error on a normal protractor is not sufficient to justifythe double action required to read this new type reversed scale. As an example of the use of the curves: an aircraft isassumed to have flown from starting point a, to b on track in ten minutes and the pilot wishes to know his ground speed.The ruler is placed on the map parallel to this line a b in such a way that the zero mark on the horizontal distance scale coin-cides with a. The ruler is next displaced while remaining parallel to a b until the ten minute line cuts point b. Theground speed can then be read off against a. A similar sequence of actions will give flying time if ground speed is known. It is understood that R. K. Dundas, Ltd , of 4. St James'sStreet. London, S.W.i, will deal with enquiries. ILIFFE THE RECORD HOLDER: Col. Albert Boyd, chief of Flight Testing Division, Air Material Command, Wright Field might result from the recap- ture of the record by a small margin this year did not justify the immediate plan- ning of an attempt. It was added, incidentally, that the single-engined Gloster project had now been abandoned. There is no doubt that this official pronouncement will come as a disappointment to many people, and it seems unlikely that ft'! attempt on the record could be made as a private venture, although presumably this possibility is not entirely excluded by the M.o.S. statement. Sponsored by "Flight" 'FLIGHT" HANDBOOK 4th edition GAS TURBINES AND JET PROPULSION FOR AIRCRAFT by G. Geoffrey Smith. M.B.E., 4th edition, 3rd impression WALL DIAGRAMS : Rolls-Royce Derwent De Havilland Gobi Metrovick F 3 Gas TURBINES FOR AIRCRAFT (4-paje colour leaflet re- printed from "Flight") 'eri •. ,lin II I Turbine ) 7s. 6d. (postage 4d.) 12s. 6d. (postage 6d.) 4s. (postage d.i 6d. (postage lid.) from all leading booksellers or from l/iffe & '.ons Ltd., Dorset House, Stamford Street, London, S.E./.
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