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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 1477.PDF
FLIGHT, 3 August 1950 CORRESPONDENCE The Editor of"Flight" does not hold himself responsible for the views expressed by correspondents in these columns, addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. The names and Questions to Answer THE Royal Air Force Display was a masterpiece of itskind; more than 250,000 people saw it over three days. How many were thinking, though, "how few"? The Royal Air Force is our first line of defence, not defiance. Who, I ask, is responsible for the fact that there is no Civil Air Guard in 1950? Who is it dares to say that the youth of Britain to-day cannot be trained to be " airfaring '' ? Who is it who denies that the jet fighters of to-day are not that much easier to fly in fair weather than the Spitfire of 1939 was in comparison with the Sopwith Camel of 1916, whose pilots seldom had more than 40 hours' flying in their log- books before being passed as fully operational? Is the standard of training in the Royal Air Force compar- able to-day with that of the Gosport School of Flying under Colonel Smith-Barry in 1917-18? If not, why is use not being made of the services of thousands of ex-C.F.S. instructors who are ready and willing to give their assistance, free, gratis, to their local flying clubs at week-ends to form and train a Civil Air Guard in 1950 on the lines of that in 1937-38, which saved Britain in 1940? Then, it was thought wise to subsidize the flying clubs in such a way to enable the youth of our country to control an aircraft in the air safely for £10. To-day it costs over ^100. In 1913 it cost ^75 and the Air Ministry refunded it all to those who were selected for the R.F.C.S.R. A hundred thousand pilots trained to " A " licence standard would be a small enough insurance against a third world war. A million might prevent it. Can we ask to-day, '' Who dares t* fly over England without a permit? " The answer is, "Anyone—except Britain's youth.' Felpham, Sussex. L. A. STRANGE) Lt. Col. [Older readers may recall that Lt. Col. Louis Strange, D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C., D.F.C and Bar, was concerned in one of the most remarkable escapes of the 1914-18 war. Engaged in aerial combat, his Martinsyde Scout became in- verted while he was changing an ammunition drum, and, insecurely strapped in, he was thrown out of the cockpit. Hanging by one hand from the Lewis gun and by the other from a centre-section strut, he managed to stay with the machine while it spun down through 5,000ft; eventually, by feeling for the stick with his feet, he managed to regain control. And that was before the days of parachutes.—ED.] "All-metal" Pioneering THE letter from Mr. Dennis M. Powell which appeared inyour issue of June 29th headed "Boeing and Douglas Pioneering," is a reminder of how false legends grow, and also of how little is known, apparently, of the cause of the present highly successful development of all-metal aircraft for all pur- poses. Nor is it entirely explanative of the cause to say, as Sir Richard Fairey said in his lecture on " Some aspects of expenditure in aviation," that it was due to the advent of the all-metal monoplane. Large passenger-carrying monoplanes, built entirely of metal, existed in Germany for many years before they appeared in the U.S.A. or Great Britain. The .German system of construction embodied a basic fault in that it was impossible to produce a fine streamlined structure with smooth surfaces such as we see to-day. The metal construction of aircraft, to be highly successful, awaited a further discovery, viz., the knowledge of how to build monococque structure in metal. That I supplied with the production of the Silver Streak, which was exhibited at Olympia first on July 12th, 1920. The Silver Streak, facetiously referred to by some as "The Sardine Tin," proved to have a tremendous strength in the destruction tests which took place at South Farnborough in the same year. The advent of an entirely new method of fuselage construc- tion, protected by patents, was no doubt viewed with some uneasiness by the whole aircraft industry. Like all innova- tions, stresse'd-skin metal construction had to face opposition and criticism from every interested quarter, even including the inner heart of the Air Ministry's Technical Department. In consequence of this opposition I went to the United States in May, 1922. At the Navy Department in Washington I was given a letter by the late Cdr. Hunsaker, addressed to fhe Wright Aeronautical Corporation, to the effect that the Navy Department would pay for the construction of the design of air- craft I had presented, if an American constructor wouldundertake the work. This, as the Americans were treating their aircraft constructors, was practically a blank cheque. Iwas, h^vever, informed by the chief designer of the company that he considered it would be impossible to build such astructure. In 1923 I produced the Cockle, a midget high-wing flying- boat which embodied the first monoque metal hull in the world. In 1923 the " Satellite " light aircraft for the Lympne Light Aeroplane Competition; it became fondly known as "Parker's Iron Balloon." In 1924 I produced the first large stressed-skin all-metal hull ever to be built, after signing a letter absolving the Air Ministry from any financial respon- sibility. In 1928 I visited the U.S.A. again, this time to try to sell the Calcutta flying-boat already in use by Imperial Airways, Ltd., on the Mediterranean service, carrying 22 passengers and mails. Again the Americans said it would be impossible to build such a hull with American rates of pay and make it a commercial proposition, but several of the manufacturers saw the drawings, including Glenn Martin and the Keystone Com- pany of New Bristol. By this time they had, of course, the fully illustrated description of the construction of the Calcutta, including even technical information which was published by Engineering. A complete disclosure! Some years after this an article appeared in an American journal in which it was said that an American aircraft con- stractor had evolved a system of construction which "had shaken not only the U.S.A. and Great'Britain, but Europe and the whole world" ! An unfounded statement, of course, but indicative of what the Americans thought of stressed- skin metal construction and its possibilities once they had mastered the constructional methods. At a time when, in this country, it was generally held that the building of really big aircraft would lead to no advantage, I conceived the idea of building a giant flying-boat. The Sara- fand, of 30 tons airborne load. I secured an order for this machine after I had written a treatise on the subject of giant aircraft for Sir Hugh Trenchard, Chief of Air Staff (now Mar- shal of the Air Force Lord Trenchard). No specification foi such a machine had been issued by the Technical Department of the Air Ministry. The great success of the Sarafand, its take-off in twenty seconds and its high speed for those days, changed the fortunes of Short Brothers. There followed almost immediately the first order for 16 Empire flying-boats, later increased to 28. The battle for stressed-skin all-metal construction of air- craft was won at Rochester, where the idea originated. It is now in world wide use; aircraft constructors take it for granted. If anyone has a prior pioneering claim they will have to prove that they built and flew an aircraft, embodying the principle, prior to July, 1920. London, N.W.3. HUGH OSWALD SHORT. Hannibal and Heracles T'HE description of the differences between the two types oi J- H.P. 42 on page 96 of Flight for July 20th does not go quite far enough. The European Heracles type had Jupiter X.F. BM engines; the Empire Hannibal type had Jupiter X. IF engines. In addition, the Hannibal type had an extra fuel tank fitted into the centre-section of the upper wing after delivery to Imperial Airways. H.P. 42 PILOT. Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol. Veterans at Farnborough I SUGGEST that in your recent accounts of the R.A.F.Display you gave rather a false impression of the capa- bilities of the little Deperdussin, Bleriot and Blackburn mono- planes of former days. From your description of their flights at Farnborough one was inclined to imagine that their ceiling was always about 20ft! Actually, when they were in their prime in about 1910-1913 some of these small aircraft, such as the Deperdussins at Hendon, frequently attained a height of 2oo-3ooft and sometimes flew even higher—which was a remarkable performance considering their power (25-35 h-p) and their general characteristics. E. BEXTLF.Y BEAUMAN, London, S.W.i. Wing Commander, R.A.F. (ret).
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