FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0325.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2196. Vol. LIX. FRIDAY. 23 FEBRUARY 1951 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT EDITOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. TECHNICAL EDITOR C. B. BAILEY-WATSON, B.A. ART ED/TOR JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams: Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (60 lines). Branch Offices: COVENTRY 8-10, Corporation Street. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2 King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 7I»I (7 lines). MANCHESTER 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams: Hiffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines). Deansgate 3595 (2 lines). GLASGOW, C.2 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas: Twelve months £3 3s. Od. U.S.A. and Canada, $10.00 BY AIR: To Canada and U.S.A., six months, $16. IN THIS ISSUE: Hiller Hornet - - - - 206 Flight Research - - - 212 All-weather Fighter - - 215 to Ambassador - 217 Background to the Ambassador 229 B-E.A.'s Elizabethans - 232 Making Air Transport Pay 238 The Big Boats NEVER, since T. O. M. Sopwith and Glenn Curtiss amazed the world with the BatBoat and Hydro, has the future of flying-boats seemed so black. The majesticShort Solents are in retirement after brief and profitless service on the African run, and for the first time since the old Calcutta biplanes flew out along the Empire routes our maritime nation is without its universally admired fleet of merchant flying-boats— inheritors of the tradition founded by the East Indiamen, the Blackwall frigates, and the clipper ships. Truly, this is a dismal situation; but it was economically inevitable and—more's the pity—is no longer brightened by the prospect of the great Saro Princesses acceding to their place in world commerce. It would appear, in fact, that unless the projected pure-jet Duchess is adopted by some airline able to exploit its particular qualities, construction of large commercial flying-boats in this country will cease for years to come. But we may be sure that the world has not heard the last of British flying-boats. Though the future of the Solents is as yet undecided, answers to Parliamentary questions tend to confirm that the ten-engined, 140-ton Princesses are destined for service with R.A.F. Transport Command. Had these great machines been planned with troop- and freight-transport in mind they might have been appreciably different, especially in hull design; but bearing in mind the record of the smaller Martin Mars, long-established in U.S. Naval service, a useful and honourable career can be foreseen for the three Princesses now on the stocks. It is, perhaps, not without significance that the new American Convair XP5Y-1 flying-boat, with four double turboprops, will see service not in its intended role of patrol and anti-submarine aircraft, but as a naval trooper/freighter for trans-oceanic service. Aside from transport, the military applications of the large flying-boat remain as anti- submarine warfare, general reconnaissance, patrol and shadowing for protracted periods, and air/sea rescue. The technical merits of the flying-boat designed for these duties, vis-d-vis a corresponding landplane, are matters of perennial dispute. It would appear, in fact, that in the anti-submarine role the boat may be at a disadvantage in being less amenable to the installation of bulky search-radar and large quantities of anti-submarine weapons. Service Needs There is one fact, however, which no technical advance has yet altered : in certain strategically important parts of the world large landplanes are rendered quite impotent by natural obstacles. In his recent R.U.S.I. lecture A.V-M. Mackworth, S.A.S.O., Coastal Command, pointed out that excellent flying-boat bases exist (particularly in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific) where construction of airfields would be slow, costly, difficult or impracticable. To meet the needs of different areas the Air Vice-Marshal believes that the bulk of our general-reconnaissance aircraft should be landplanes along, with a number of flying-boat squadrons mainly located overseas. He envisages specially equipped depot ships, augmenting the efficiency of advanced bases, in the manner of Naval dockyards. With these opinions we are firmly in accord. For their immediate implementation we have Avro Shackleton landplanes and the Short Sunderland flying-boats. The Shackleton is a new machine, only now entering service, and capable of lengthy development; but the Sunderland is the oldest type of operational aircraft in the R.A.F., and has been developed to the utmost. It may be that the Solents, which are closely related to the military Seaford (a Hercules-powered Sunderland development) might be pillaged of their luxurious appointments and usefully converted to augment the ageing Sunderlands; nevertheless, a replacement, embodying the latest techniques in aerodynamic and hydrodynamic design, and powered with turboprop or compounded power plants, is, to our mind, overdue. Not only would such craft play a vital part in Commonwealth defence, but they would sustain those construc- tors whose faith in flying-boats for military and civil purposes remains—like our own —unshaken, and whose dreams of "argosies with magic sails" may yet be realized.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
