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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 1367.PDF
FLIGHT, 20 July 1950 but tend to become spongy at normal operating speeds ofbetween 100 m.p.h. and 140 m.p.h. The rudder is effective and pleasantly light. So far as manoeuvrability goes the Pup is a joy to fly, butthe ailerons are definitely spongy at high speed and give the impression that it would not be easy to do a slow roll; in factI believe the few people who were able to achieve good slow rolls on the Pup managed it by pushing the stick hard overuntil it touched their knees (which it does all too soon), and then tucking it under the knee and pushing it the rest of theway across the cockpit. The aircraft is, as one would expect of a 19.14-18 fighter, fullyaerobatic. The gyroscopic action one experiences with other heavy rotaries is almost entirely absent with the 80 h.p. LeRhone, presumably because the engine is very light and the Pup's rudder and elevators are particularly effective. The bestclimbing speed is between 65 and 70 m.p.h., with the engine doing about 1,140 r.p.m., i.e., full engine speed on the climb. Looping is a very straightforward manoeuvre indeed. Onedives to about 115 m.p.h., then pulls the stick gently back; the force necessary to do so can easily be applied with thelittle finger. There is a very slight tendency to swing as one passes over the top of the loop, but it is corrected almostunconsciously with the rudder. The, amazing thing about the loop, both from the pilot's point of view and from thatof anyone who watches it nowadays, is that the loop itself is of such small dimensions that one hardly realizes what hashappened. This is very different from the loop performed by modern fighters, which usually includes some 5,000ft of alti-tude and may be a mile-and-a-half or two miles in diameter. The Pup stalls in very much the same way as all the moreaged biplanes, that is to say, much more suddenly than a modern aircraft, but perfectly controllably, and with little lossof height. Recovery from an ordinary stall is immediate. Landing Technique -..-•""'•.."•, . ' . Coming in to land, one closes the throttle until one gets whathas been referred to above as the '' dot and carry one'' tick- over, i.e., throttle quarter open and fine-adjustment set tostarve the engine slightly. When this setting is satisfactorily achieved the engine is switched off by the main switch (it israther tiring to hold the blip switch down with one's thumb) and the Pup glides in comfortably at 55 m.p.h. Checking theglide at about 20ft is normal and, from 55 m.p.h., there is no appreciable float as we understand it to-day. Oue couldundoubtedly glide in between 45 and 50 m.p.h. but the flatten- ing-out and landing would have to be done somewhat abruptly. The landing is perfectly straightforward and, with the rudderbar connected to the tail-skid, as described, there is no inclina- tion to swing; without it there is quite a considerable tendencyto do so, particularly when one " catches " the engine, since it is apt to come on with something of a roar, and the sudden torquemay initiate a swing. A way of correcting this swing, much used when the Pup was in service, was to push the stick hardforward, thus bringing up the tail and imposing what there is of gyroscopic action to counteract the torque. However, withthe steerable tail-skid this action is quite unnecessary and the landing is simple. •M ) •• Flight •' plwtograph. J G;C Wheeier in tne coci<pit of hiistNB«£, Note the padded-_ edge windshield and the airscrew-synchronized Viewer On one occasion, coming down to the Royal AeronauticalSociety Garden Party in 1938, the pressure in the petrol tank was not keeping up and I had to pump it up by hand; nor-mally the windmill pump does the job. At that time, unfor- tunately, the main engine switch was on the right-hand side,just where one's arm could touch when trying to use the hand pump, and in this way I switched it off accidentally. Havinglittle height, I had not time to search round the cockpit to see what had happened and I naturally assumed that the low pres-sure in the tank was the cause of failure, so started to execute a forced landing from 700ft. I selected a field of ample pro-portions and level surface, and did the approved approach by "S" turns, followed by a gentle side-slip, and then landedjust over the hedge, taking very great care in case I should not stop running inside the field. The Pup stopped in 16 yards,leasing between 500 and 600 yards of clear field in front of me! (Gliding turns and side-slipping are a joy, since one can gofrom one turn into another very quickly and still keep within 100 yards or so of one's landing point. One does come downrather steeply, though, due to the facts that the Pup is very light and that the drag, by modern standards, is high. Taken all round, the Pup is a delightful little aircraft to fly,with one of the smoothest-running engines one could ever experience even to-day, excluding only jets. It has no vicesand is, in fact, extremely easy to handle, but—and this is an important "but"—one has to land it, not just push it onthe ground as one does with so many modern aircraft. More- over, one has to "handle" the engine, and not merely, openthe throttle as one does to-day. As related on this page, the Avro Canada Orenda turbojet, to power the CF-100 fighter, is being flight-tested at Malton, Ontario, in the outboard nacelles of this Lancaster "test-bed." ,\ AIR-TESTING THE ORENDA YET another Avro flying test-bed for a new gas-turbinedesign has begun its development programme—a Lan- caster modified by Avro Canada, Ltd., to carry two of itsnew Orenda turbojets in the outboard positions A powerful axial-flow unit, the Orenda has already accumulated hundredsof hours of successful ground-running. It was designed primarily as a power-unit for the Avro Canada CF-100, which,in prototype form (a second prototype is now finished), is powered by two Rolls-Royce Avons of comparable specification. The test-bed aircraft was built during the war by AvroCanada's predecessor, Victory Aircraft. Fairings replace the nose and tail turrets and the machine has been " winterized"to permit long-range operation into northern bases for cold- weather testing. Test facilities of the Orenda-Lancaster consist of a test-observer's instrument panel at the navigator's position, and automatic observers in the rear fuselage, with the necessarycontrols and instrument-leads between the panel and observers and the new power installation. Avro Canada states that the test-programme will be par-ticularly concerned with proving the fuel" system and thrust controls. Compressor efficiencies and the effects of accelera-tion will be checked, and the solidity of the turbojet's^structure will be tested by a series of climbs, dives and turns. Lancaster, Lancastrian or Lincoln test-beds have been em-ployed to test almost every type of British gas •"*>'
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