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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0363.PDF
FEBRUARY 24TH, 1949 FLIGHT 237 CORRESPONDENCE The Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views expressed by correspondents. The names and addresses if the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. A FIRST "HEAVIER THAN AIR" To Which Squadron Should the Honour be Awarded S an old member of No. 2 Squadron I am prepared to put •^"^ up with No. 1 Squadron being the first to ny an aeroplane, but when you jump to No. 3 Squadron and call it "Britain's premier 'heavier than air' Squadron," then I must protest. What has No. 2 Squadron done to deserve such treatment— will no-one in the Squadron today fight for their honour? C. R. L. (2 Sqn., 1930). [In this matter it is "Flight's " desire only to be accurate. If C. R. L. will produce historic authority for his contention we will incorporate it in the history of No. 3 Squadron, which we intend shortly to publish.—ED.] JUNIOR MET. ASSISTANTS Alleged Inexperience TTAVING read your account of the inquiry into the cause of -tX the K.L.M. disaster at Prestwick, in which doubts were raised concerning the accuracy of a weather report issued by an eighteen-year-old Met. assistant, I thought the following might be of interest to yeu. I flew recently as Air Quartermaster on the crew which took a senior officer to a well-known R.A.F. station. After our arrival the aircraft was towed out to a dispersal line across the airfield. At 2230 hours (approximately) on the same day I had occa- sion to visit the machine, and the display of Northern Lights became so bright, with waving "curtains" of red, blue and white, that it resembled a false dawn, and the aircraft was perfectly visible from a distance of several hundred yards. On returning to the main buildings I saw the two adolescent Met. assistants, in charge for the night, gazing open-mouthed at the display above; and as they had both " presumed " that there was a fire "or something," 1 explained the phenomenon to them. Though they may lack experience, I see no reason why, after a Government course of instruction, a minor cannot carry such responsibilities as satisfactorily as an adult. But having issued all the current posters and publications on Accident Prevention, surely it is in the interest of the Air Ministry to ensure that the watchkeepers on airfields under its control have received a thorough training? Finally, as the term Aurora Borealis meant nothing to either, I had to write it down for them on a piece of paper, and also advise them how to phrase their recording of it (I presume they did keep a time-log). When I expressed surprise at their ignorance, one replied, "Oh, we were pushed through our course in a hurry." These two Meteorological Assistants had no knowledge what- Jf soever of a natural phenomenon quite common in these fati- tudes. Flying crews are entitled to ask: "Of what else are they ignorant? " Prestburv, Ches. ROBERT T. NEEDHAM. ALTIMETER SETTINGS Q.N.H. Must be Used at High-level Airfields I HAVE read with interest the correspondence in your columnsconcerning Altimeter Settings and, in particular, the letter in your February 3rd issue by Mr. J. Scott. I would like to point out to Mr. Scott the following facts: Q.N.H. will always give you airfield height on your altimeter on landing. This Q.F.F. will not always do. The last state- ment is true at high-level airfields. The reason is as follows: Q.N.H. is Q.F.E. (airfield level pres- sure) converted to sea level on the I.C.A.N. atmosphere assump- tion (i.e., an increase of 1.98 deg C j 1,oooft). Q.F.F. is Q.F.E. converted to sea level, assuming the station level temperature at sea level. Now the altimeter reads a pressure difference, the difference between the environmental level pressure and the pressure set on the sub-scale, as a height in the I.C.A.N. atmo- sphere. Therefore, Q.N.H. will always give us airfield height on landing, while Q.F.F. will only give the correct height if the airfield level is not high enough to make any practical difference between the assumption of an increase in temperature of 1.98 E 25 deg C /1,000ft and a constant station level temperature at sea level. That means that Q.F.F. and Q.N.H. to the accuracy we can set on our altimeters will have the same value in this country. With regard to Mr. Scott's suggestion that Q.F.E. is the best setting for a landing approach. I fully agree. But I would ask him, has he ever flown from an airfield at sea level to one about 5,000ft above sea level? This will require, with average conditions, a change in sub-scale readings from approximately 1,013 mbs to approximately 850 mbs! It can often occur, when the Q.F.E. at the high level airfield is less than this, that the altimeter settings will not give a low enough reading to permit this value to be set. Q.F.F., I can assure him, will not give him his airfield height on landing; but Q.N.H. will. The important point is that, so far as possible when adopting settings for use, we want as few as possible to avoid con- fusion ; the report of the accident at Northolt on July 4th, 1948, printed in the same copy of Flight, illustrates this point. To sum up, Q.F.E. cannot be used on a world-wide basis, therefore at certain high-level airfields we must use Q.N.H. and land with airfield height showing on the altimeter. What, then, is the use of Q.F.F.? A. J. PLOWMAN. Hamble, Southampton. :Sr:^ R.A.F. AIRCREWS v They Also Have Their ComplaintsH OW many people are aware of the disturbing number of aircrew cadets who go voluntarily redundant in order to obtain their release from the service? Many complain that after a long, tiresome, cross-country exercise they are ordered to polish the crew room and do other "necessary bull." Most cadets have little or no leave between training periods, and a 48-hour pass is something which is worshipped, especially by the married men. The ground staff have their moan, so let's turn to the other side—the present conditions for our much-needed aircrews. Coventry. LEWIS G. COOPER. MANNING THE R.A.F. "~ The Right Kind of Discipline - THE administrative problems disclosed by recent correspon-dence on this vexed subject all turn upon a point which", if an ex "Brown-Job" may hazard an opinion, is at once a strength and a weakness in the R.A.F. set-up, namely the division into sections under: — (a) General Duties, Equipment, Technical, and (b) Administrative and Special Duties Branches. So far as one can understand from the bitter comments of the disgusted O.R.s, they are delivered daily by some loathed "Admin." representative to some rather less loathed "Tech- nical" representative for whom they labour until such time as they return into the care of "Admin." at the end of the working day. No officer for whom they work, and, in war, fight and possibly die, appears to have any responsibility for the imme- diate day-to-day welfare and happiness of " his " men. I may have failed to read between the lines correctly, but nowhere have I seen any reference to "my" officer or "our" officers, and the only recurring references are those of an apopletic nature towards the S.D. and Admin, people who, one gathers, are the only representatives of authority ever seen by the unhappy airman, intelligent or otherwise. Does no officer ever have placed squarely on his shoulders the responsibility for X men with a clear understanding that if these X men are unhappy, worried, fed-up, bored, unoccupied, disgruntled, frustrated, it is his pigeon? "Discipline," said General Slim, "exists when a man knows to whom he must go for instructions "—and he meant " in the assurance that he will receive sensible, thoughtful, practicable instructions from officers who understand and care for his problem." This is the discipline that the British man and woman will accept in any Service, and has accepted since the days of Nelson. When they have that discipline, and the feeling that "their" officers care about 'em, they won't worry if the officers have better accommodation than they. In fact, in more instances than not, they will see to it themselves that
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