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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0012.PDF
12 FLIGHT JANUARY IST, 1948 American Newsletter and free-lance operators carried (exclusive of mail) over 14,500,000 ton-miles of freight, which is some 174,000,000 t.m. per annum. All this has been done despite the fact that this type of operation is in its infancy. No special aircraft are available. The best methods of cargo-handling are still to be worked out. The customers still have to be educated to send their products by ail. Even the operators themselves, without properly trained personnel, proper ramps, suitable off-loading points and trucking tie-ins, are working through an experimental period which has already sent some of the smaller companies into bankruptcy. There have been accidents to both aircraft and to cargoes; perish- able goods have gone bad (but not as often as you might think) and some of the all-weather equipment of the smaller non-scheduled lines has been anything but adequate. Yet the figures go on rising, and even if there are more flying accidents this winter, it will hardly affect the shippers of air freight, for the past winter shows that they are unaffected by such accidents. Developments up to the moment, therefore, indicate that what we need are aircraft specifically designed for the job, much better handling facilities, much better trained personnel and, through more experience, a better " cargo know-how." These will enable costs to be lowered with consequent increase in freight traffic. And if this can be done in an area of good ground facilities, think what can be done where surface transporta- tion is bad! So far as aircraft design is concerned, there seem to be only three new machines, either flying or in design, which have the purely commercial freight operator in mind. The Bristol Wayfarer, the Northrop Pioneer and the, as yet unbuilt, Curtiss CW-32. For comparison the published figures for these two latter aircraft are as follows: — Northrop Pioneer (Flying) Curtiss CW-32 (Design only)A.U.W.—27,500 lb i 106,450 lb Weight capacity—7,500 lb - 34,200 Ib . ,Cubic capacity—1,640 cu ft 4,800 cu ft Operating range—300 miles 1,300 milesBlock speed—150 m.p.h. 24S m.p.h. Whether the pioneer will go into production and whetherthe CW-32 will ever be built is something that remains to be seen. Both companies say they will not proceed untilthey get orders—a wise decision if the immediate bank balance is consulted—but I doubt its wisdom in the longrun. As I am not a financier I naturally subscribe to the school of thought which believes that if an aircraft is builtand it is good, then it will sell. But you can't sell a new type—particularly a new type for a semi-tried operation—off the drawing board. (And that is where they have fallen down over here on the feeder-line aircraft. They wouldn't build without orders, therefore there were no orders, there-fore there are no feeder-line transports. But the demand quite obviously exists!) The basic design of an all-cargo aircraft is also somethingwhich has to be carefully considered. Admittedly at this •stage of the game we only know half the story, and therewill be a lot of mistakes made, but from what we do know the following requirements seem to be necessary: — The ideal thing would be to have a completely removablebox fuselage, after the nature of that produced by Miles. One cargo operator went so far as to tell me that he didn'tthink freight carrying by air would really pay until that type of body—fuselage if you like—was available. In anycase, ease of loading and unloading is of paramount import- ance, and this includes size and position of the door, itsheight above the ground, the height of the compartment, the method of segregating the load for the various stopsen route, and the method of tying it down.- Up to the moment, rope nets with steel tie-down rings seem to be themost satisfactory for securing the packages. Obviously " aircraft with a wide e.g. range is necessary, but the weand balance requirements will always be a major problem. The floor should be strong, suitable for at least 200 lb persquare foot, and smooth enough to be able to slide heavy goods about. Other points that would have to be takencare of in design would be ventilation, heating, pressuriza- tion, and refrigeration, although some experience inrefrigeration here indicates that the pre-freezing of many of the foodstuffs, and the cold at high altitude, does eliminatethe necessity for the latter requirement. (But what happens in the summer if the aircraft is grounded at, say, Phoenix,Arizona, for maintenance trouble when it has perishable goods on board, I tremble to think!) As to the specification for aircraft performance I doubt -tthere is yet sufficient information to say exactly what is needed. But for certain types of overseas operation, .1rapid take-off and slow landing speed will be necessary at the expense of high speed, and also a very rugged con-struction; an ideal that both the Wayfarer and Pioneer have tried for. For long-range domestic, trans-ocean andsimilar operations I would think that, as for the passenger transport, high utilization (and this must be obtained byrapid loading and unloading as well as high speed) would be the answer. I feel sure that a manufacturer who makesa suitable aircraft, and an operator who runs it, will not only make money but will do a considerable service to thecountry and the world. Moreover, the cargo class of air- craft may be the last and lingering hope for the retentionof the reciprocating engine, and we may yet see the atir- craft equivalent of Kipling's tramp-steamer wallowingalong at 25,000 feet at a mere 300 m.p.h. while turbo-jet liners whistle past it! THE STRATOJET FLIES '"THE first large high-speed military aircraft to have a swept-i- back wing and tail surfaces, the Boeing XB-47, or Strato- jet, to give it the manufacturer's registered name, made its firstflight from Boeing Field, Seattle, on December 17th. Piloted by Robert Robbins, this six-jet bomber remained airborrn.,.. ^52 minutes,^during which time preliminary checks were made of '' cdntrofapproaches to stalling speed, unsymmetrical powerconditions, operation of mechanical equipment, and general ' ' :\ " flight characteristics." All were declaredto be satisfactory. After take-off, and a preliminary con-trol check, Robbins, and his co-pilot Scott Osier, climbed to 15,000ft over theCascade Mountains, heading east, throttled the General Electric turbo jetsand continued to climb to 16,000 feet. Having made further checks they madefour "practice landings" at various speeds while over Eastern Washington,and came in to Moses Lake airfield, where continued tests will be conducted. The XB-47 was designed to carry oveiten tons of bombs and has a designed gross weight of 125,000 1b. Though in normal flight condition the XB-47 is extremely clean, it appears unusually dirty with "everything down "
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