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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0197.PDF
FLIGHT, 26 January 1950 Trainers . . Scant that, having fostered the development of an 800 h.p. "primary/basic/advanced" trainer, the U.S. has seen fit to place an order for a quantity of undisguised "primaries," namely, Fairchild T-31S with 280 h.p. Lycoming radial. The standard basic trainer of the R.A.F. is the Percival Prentice, a 2/3-seater (pilot and pupil are side-by-side) designed to a 1943 specification and now well established in service. Its makers, together with Handley. Page (Read- ing), Ltd., have lately been awarded contracts for the con- struction of prototypes intended for similar duties but powered with the Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah radial engine of 420 h.p. Some surprise—indeed, concern—has been ex- pressed that a tail-wheel undercarriage should.have been specified for these projects for, as will have been seen in the foregoing pages, the great majority of modern first-line air- craft have a nose-wheel. The Air Ministry, however, has weighed its decision carefully. In this connection, it is interesting to observe that, having regard to the nose-wheel v. tail-wheel controversy, Fokker have adopted the solution (being the first to do so) of offering their S.n and S.12 2/3-seater primary trainers, one (the S.n) with "tail- down " undercarriage, and the other with a nose-wheel. I _ Two outstanding types of advanced trainer—the Avro \ • Athena 2 and Boulton Paul Balliol 2—are at present under- : going official trials. Both are side-by-side two-seaters with a Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine, and each has a Mk.r counterpart fitted with an Armstrong Siddeley Mamba of , RoUs-Royee Dart turboprop. Series production of these turbine versions is not at present contemplated. The Athena 2 and Balliol 2 have been designed not only for advanced flying training under visual and real or simulated instru- ment conditions, but for instruction in, and the practice of, navigation, dive bombing (with the use of dive brakes), gunnery, rocket firing and photography. They are suitable, moreover, for towing gliders or targets and the Balliol, which has folding wings, is adaptable for deck landing. It is now R.A.F. practice to convert pilots under training direct from Harvards (for the replacement of which the Athena and Balliol have been developed) to Meteor 7 dual- control jet trainers. Possessing an even higher performance than the Meteor 4 fighter (especially in rate of climb, which is no less than 7,920 ft/min at sea level), the Meteor 7 was developed to familiarize pilots with the characteristics of 600-m.p.h. fighters and bombers and, in common with other jet aircraft, is generally conceded to be easier to handle than many piston-engined types. The front, or pupil's, cockpit has all instruments, warning devices, emergency and other equipment found in the standard fighter, but the instructor has only essential instruments and controls. No armament is fitted, but for instruction in combat procedure there is a camera gun and a retractable gyro gunsight. Typical of high-performance trainers developed from first-line piston-engined fighters are the dual-control Hawker Fury and Sea Fury Trainers, the Supermarine Spitfire Trainer and the Fairey Operational Trainer—all having facilities for armament instruction. It will be recognized that in the adaptation of such aircraft the provision of an adequate field of view from the rear cockpit is a matter of difficulty, and some ingenious solutions have been applied to this problem by British designers. ""* Though their basic design is seventeen years old, the Fairchild T-31 (Lycoming). Morane-Saulnter M.S.47S (Hispano Suiza I2Y). I North American T-28 Wright farm G.46 (Alfa Romeo or Gipsy Queen). (Pratt and Whitney R-
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