FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1661.PDF
OCTOBER 7TH, 1948 FLIGHT 423 anil powerful brakes is in no way difficult to control. Descriptions of the ducted and annular radiator, and detail comparative results of performance, were printed in Flight dated October 3rd, 1946. Since that time the ducted spinner has assumed great importance for application to small turboprops. Fitted together with the annular radiator to the Sabre, an overall drag improvement of 8 per cent was achieved by comparison with the standard instal- lation. Few, except those intimately connected with the work, realize the importance of a reduction of as little as 1 per cent of drag in cooling or air intake installations on the net thrust produced. Moreover, when comparisons aremade of piston engine b.h.p. and shaft horse power in gas turbines, and these related to aircraft performance, mentionof their respective drag figures is frequently overlooked. The latest Naiad spinner is similar in all important re-spects to that on Napier's Tempest, but some detail im- provements have been made, and the chord of the outershell of the rotating spinner has been reduced. It is probable that this work on ducted spinners carried out by Napier'sexperimental establishment at Luton, will be of value to many other companies producing small turboprops. Casual Cownwnentary Thoughts After the S.B.A.C. Show : Why Not Invite a Guest to Speak ? : A Hard Time for the Pilots : Chances Must be Taken : Bv ROBERT CARLING NO doubt there are a hundred and one ways of achiev-ing success in what is so horribly described as " pub-licity "—each method depending on the character of the person one is expected somehow «to impress. At one extreme we have the simple exaggerative "oarsis by far the best and there's nothing whatever wrong with it "kind of approach, in which it is faintly hoped that25 per cent of the electorate will believe 25 per cent of the story. At the other extreme we have the over-subtle"ours is really not too bad at all" approach in which 50 per cent of the electorate is expected to infer that theproduct is 50 per cent better than it is actually said to be. The best line most probably lies somewhere between thetwo extremes. Which is by way of being a gentle introduction for thesuggestion that we always seem to overdo the personal trumpet-blowing at the S.B.A.C. Show. Our foreign visitors—who are not likely to be entirelyignorant of the total picture—and we ourselves would, I think, be much more impressed if the congratulations wereinterspersed with a few lightly worded criticisms and realistic but constructive comments. Again, it has alwaysseemed to me that there is something wrong about a speech- making programme in which no visitors' names appear onthe toast list. Would it not be a pleasant and very English arrange-ment if the main speech—extolling, if you like, our pro- ducts—were to be made as a welcome to the foreign visitors,while the reply came from one of our many old-established, knowledgeable and witty friends from abroad? The pro-poser would then, in self-defence, be forced to laugh at some of the errors of our ways, and the responder wouldbe able to pull our legs just as far as this was consistent with good manners. We should thus be prevented fromtaking ourselves too seriously, while, at the same time, making a really worthwhile gesture for the benefit of theonly people who, in the end, really matter—the overseas visitors. This year's Exhibition was certainly remarkable for theway in which trump cards, in the way of new aircraft, were turned up at the last minute. I never remember an occa-sion on which at least two large aircraft had been known to have made their first flight within a couple of days ofthe opening of the show, yet managed to put in the time necessary to be allowed to take part in the flying display. But the whole thing was pretty hard on the pilots—notonly on those conducting the newcomers, which had to be demonstrated after such an absurdly short handling-checkperiod, but also on those of all the tougher aircraft. There were five flying days and on two of these days the weatherwas indifferent to very poor. That there were no acci- dents—and only one or two moments when the more know-ledgeable spectators suffered a contraction of the heart muscles—can be put down to luck and to the very high standard of skill among the fifty or so test pilots.Incidentally, these boys certainly carry the responsibility in a way which is not generally appreciated. It's a caseof "heads I win, tails you lose" on so many occasions when risks must be assessed and taken by a pilot with theclear knowledge that he will receive nothing but blame if it doesn't come off, or, alternatively, a wigging from hisdirectors if he doesn't put up a good show. He's in trouble either way, but everybody slaps everybody else's back ifall is well. Justification by Results Of course, there's nothing new about these one-sidedrisks which have to be taken in order to get anything done The history books are full of the names of people which areprinted in bold type because they got away with mur derously thin chances, or because they happened to be onthe winning side and were therefore dubbed patriots rather than traitors. I am not supposing that Master Drake wouldhave received anything better than a brief disparaging mention as a pirate if his round-the-world Golden Hindhad not been lucky enough to slip into deeper water after being aground in the Molucca Sea, or wherever it was. Nevertheless, it will be a bad time in this safety-first,pass-the-buck, black-coated civilization when there is not a soul left who dares to take a big risk on his own responsibility and in spite of all the rules and regulations which are slowly hemming us in. Not that this is likely. Alreadythe vaguely proficient amateur pilot is learning to be a free-booter—developing bad eyesight when handed a sheafof Notices to Airmen and suffering from premature lapses of memory at the very thought of the things he will beexpected to know and to do when the whole complicated business is thoroughly organized to the satisfaction of thevarious people concerned with our personal safety. Rules of safety there must be, and these must be kept inthe spirit if not in the letter. It will be up to the adminis- trators to see that, in a praiseworthy effort to guard thelives of the innocent airline passenger and the still more innocent householder below, the whole business of flyingisn't reduced to expensively strait-jacketed \iselessness. That one-in-a-million affair of the York and the Skymaster,it will be astringent to remember, might never have hap- pened had there been no flying control. Other collisions,maybe, but not that particular one. It is not likely that, in a sky of moving objects and pure chance, two aircraftwould have been in such close proximity. During the war, in an almost uncontrolled air, with thousands of air-craft flying daily in all kinds of weather, collisions were so rare as to be almost unheard-of on non-operational flying. Let there be rules, but sensible ones and not too manyor too strict. There is too much of a tendency nowadays to treat ail citizens as if they are without any shred ofintelligence or personal initiative. B. s
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
