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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0268.PDF
FLIGHT FEBRUARY 26, 1948 TRANSPORTS TODAY AND TOMORROW... For the most profitable improvements, operators must look to the flying-boat designer. New technical concepts promise not only to increase speed—thus removing one of the principal disadvantages of the present-day flying boat— but to enable the flying boat, or water-based aircraft, to describe it more accurately, to exceed the carrying capacity, with or without aerial refuelling, of the corresponding landplane. Factors productive of speed are a reduction of hull dimensions relative to overall size; a general refine- ment in aerodynamic design (e.g., the retraction of lateral stabilising floats); adoption of turbine power plants and pressurisation, allowing a great increase in operational height; and—perhaps most important—research into hull design, as exemplified by the work done by the N.A.C.A. in America. ' The first major aerodynamic improvement, after re- design of the rear and main steps, has been the retraction of the lateral stabilising floats into the wing, a measure which, though obviously advantageous in current designs, will present some difficult problems when thinner wing sections are adopted, even should recourse be made to bifurcation, as on the SR/45. Concerning power plants, the urgent need for piston engines and airscrew turbines of 4,000-6,000 h.p., for installation in projected flying boats has become dis- turbingly obvious. The application of the compound power plant to the long-range flying boat promises well, though this combination would seem best suited to Service require- ments, where, for certain types of duty, economy may over-ride other desiderata. It is to the turbo jet that designers may look with confidence as a means of ultimately revolutionising flying boat design. The slim, axial-flow units, which seem likely to be standardised where extreme thrusts and economy are demanded, could be completely buried in a wing of moderate thickness, though hardly without detracting from ease of maintenance. Of greater importance is the consideration that the turbo jet will tttft prescribe the distance the wing is carried above the water. Should this distance be greatly reduced, however, the jet intakes must be so positioned that appreciable intake of water is precluded. In any case there seems to be no doubt (especially bearing in mind the performance already demon- strated by the SR/Al twin-jet fighter) that the flying boat can be made aerodynamically efficient enough to benefit from pure-jet propulsion, though augmentation of take-off thrust by means of after-burning, A.T.O. rockets or other means may prove necessary. Developments now on trial at the N.A.C.A. include hulls with a length/beam ratio of between 10 and 15; the "planing tail" type of hull (stated by Mr. Grover Loening to decrease water resistance by half, and further to reduce air resistance); new bow designs; retractable spray strips Though vast in bulk, the all-wood Hughes Hercufes (eight Pratt and Whitney Wasp Major engines) is aerodynamically clean.
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