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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1672.PDF
FLIGHT, 29 September i<j)y AMERICAN NOTEBOOK By " Favonius JETS BE DAMONED ! ALTHOUGH on their native heath the British peoplemight fairly be called a sporting nation and a goodrisk for the bookies, on the international race-course they are apt to confound the betting. By all the rules of global gamesmanship they should stay back in third place, letting the two out-front stage most of the grandstand play. This is shrewd jockeying while getting one's second wind, and now that the wind turns out to be a jet blast, the raucous voices in the grandstand may become a little more restrained; indeed, one or two even sound a bit strained. There is no doubt that the successful debut ot the de Havilland Comet has caused a widening ripple of concern throughout the American aircraft industry, the major air- lines, and the Congressional policy-makers. On the policy side, this trinity have been bickering over a financial formula for the prototype development of government- sponsored civil transport aircraft, while in the technical realm they hang suspended between the fuel economy of the turboprop and the speed-altitude comfort of the turbo- jet. After all this dickering with paper darts on the drawing board, it comes as a bit of a jolt to them to see the British torch-bearer riding high in the stratosphere. American comments on the Comet vary from the pene- trant to the piquant, and one or two even border on the petulant. The penetrating observations, as might be ex- pected, come from the engineering fraternity, frustrated by dollar-pinching on the civil side while dipping deeply into Uncle Sam's pocket on the military side; more piquant, if a little reactionary, are recent comments of top airline executives—who should have guessed better; and the peevish voices, we suspect, belong to the Anglophobes keenly looking forward to the inquest on John Bull's body —only to find the old codger rounding the bend and breath- ing better than ever. That the bookies have become a little confused over the form of the horses still in the stable is shown by an editorial comment in one of the U.S. aviation monthlies, which says: "Our British friends are doing a good job of gloating in print over the fact that American aircraft designers " missed the boat' in wanting to go straight from piston engine transports to jets, by-passing propeller turbine engines. According to reports in the British aviation Press, Americans are now asking the advice of British aviation experts on the design of future airliners. They further state that the Aircraft Division of the Society of Automotive Engineers, which went overboard at their 1948 Los Angeles meeting in endorsing jet-engined trans- ports for 1955, has now revised its specifications and at their 1949 meeting will discuss the turboprop engine for this transport." Our own recollection as a silent observer of the aforesaid S.A.E. meeting last year is something quite different, so we trust our chief commercial competitors (let's be honest with our friends as well as ourselves !) will not think we are " gloating in print" if we clear the air a bit. Actually, only two design teams, Douglas and Lockheed, came flat out for a 1955 )el transport, with Convair—the third member of the design panel—straddling the fence, possibly waiting for a civil-type-tested turboprop unit for conversion of their Convair-Liner. As a matter of fact, they are still waiting for the Allison T-40 turboprops to show up for installation in the new Convair XP5Y-1 boat, so the prospects for a civil turboprop unit are hardly likely to materialize fora bit. The Northrop team played possum during these dis- cussions, although they were known to be busy making studies of a turbopropped civil version of the Flying Wing, designed around their 10,000 h.p. Turbodyne engine. To date, this somewhat ambitious turboprop project—which began life as a turbojet and then got crossed up by the U.S. Navy—is reported to have delivered about 7,000 h.p., which indicates that several more years must elapse before it can be counted upon to deliver its designed output as an ordinary day-by-day commercial performance. Again, it may not be generally known that Northrop's, working in conjunction with the airscrew industry, are designing the Turbodyne as a pusher turboprop combina- tion which, perhaps, serves to emphasize the experimental nature of this project. The really difficult problems are likely to crop up when the gearing, airscrew and jet-exhaust snags have to be fought out. Nevertheless, we would cer- tainly like to see this enterprising group of heterodoxists get away with it. The question mark, however, still re- mains : will it be worth the price of the technical know- how in comparison with the contemporary status of the pure jet, say, in 1955? The airline operators, as represented by their top engi- neers, were blissfully blind to the charms of both turbine schools, prop and jet—all they asked for was tc he left alone to make some money with their pumping pistons; in fact, their idea of a 1955-65 airline." was astonishingly modest for Americans: they would be quite happy with nothing bigger and faster than a piston-engined 120,000-lb 50-seater cruising at 350 m.p.h. at 30,000 feet. The air screw section of the industry, naturallv enough, put up a The British cat that has caused more than a little flutter in the American dovecotes. " Its inaugural flight . . . put the United States and the rest of the world at least three years behind technologically in this field," admits one expert observer across the Atlantic.
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