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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0426.PDF
270 FLIGHT, 2 March 1951 CORRESPONDENCE The Editor of "Flight" does not hold himself responsible for the views expressed by correspondents in these columns. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. Electricity or Airways?W ITH reference to Mr. A. Jenkins's letter in the February 23rd issue of Flight, I too have noticed the rather confusing use of the initials "B.E.A." by two nationalized corporations. I feel, however, that the people who so continually exhort us not to use the commodity which they so sparingly produce have a rather stronger claim to the initials on the ground that they carry the greater number of "passengers." Their continued use of the coveted letters will serve to reinforce this statement. Thorpe Bay, Essex. J. F. M. WRIGHT. Basic Science IN pursuance of Truth and the welfare of newcomers to thescience of aviation and in the teeth of the mathematical boffins, I feel impelled to point out a misapprehension on the part of the writers of elementary textbooks dealing with aeronautics. The same mistake occurs in school science-books. In treating of gravitation it is frequently stated that "the force of gravity increases the nearer the centre of the earth is ap- proached." And from this statement it is inferred that, the nearer one approaches the poles, the greater is the acceleration due to gravity, because one is getting nearer to the centre of the earth. Now it is true that g increases as the poles are approached, but it is not because the centre of the earth is nearer. In any case, the force of gravity would be nil at the centre of the earth. The truth is that g decreases towards the equator owing to the earth's spin and the consequent increase of centrifugal force with decreasing latitude. If the great big world turned seventeen times as fast as it does, objects at latitude o degrees would whizz off into space. Furthermore, if the earth did not revolve at all, objects would weigh more heavily at the equator than at the poles. Hamble, Hants. LESLIE W. CRAWFORD. Check Flights I REGRET that Dr. Noel Jackson, in a letter published in yourissue of February 15th, should so seriously have misquoted the "Civil Aviation News" item referring to check flights in your issue of January 18th. I am not concerned with the subject-matter of his letter so much as with the grave injustice done to the chairman of this Association, Capt. Upton, who is quoted as saying, "An aircraft captain should never be required to subject himself to check flights which . . . tend to undermine the captain's confidence in himself and endanger the discipline in the aircraft." If Mr. Jackson will read your news item again he will see that it was not Capt. Upton who said any such thing, but a correspondent who was disagreeing with what Capt. Upton had written in the December issue of The Lagb the official journal of the British Air Line Pilots Association. It is regrettable, to say the least, that Capt. Upton should have been publicly associated with remarks which he never made and to which in effect he is thoroughly opposed. I suggest that Dr. Jackson reads your articles a little more carefully in future. London, W.i. D. FOLLOWS, Secretary, British Air Line Pilots Association. [The letter in question should, of course, have been amended before publication to make the origin of the statement clear.—ED.] Fireproof Mosquito T WAS interested to see on page 186 of your issue of February A 15th the picture of a Mosquito "which came home after flying through blazing fuel from its victim." I was the pilot on that occasion, the night of August 7th/8th, 1944. We were on a routine night-fighter patrol over the Normandy beach-head, and, though we did not reach our base at Hunsdon, we did make a safe landing at a strip on the other side—B.5, near Caen, com- manded by G/C. C. S. Morice, who was probably indirectly responsible for the photograph. Should any readers be interested, here are some details of the incident. We had intercepted a Ju 88 over the beach-head on a very dark night and I had difficulty in seeing it through the ring-sight before opening fire. Two bursts of cannon produced no impression beyond awakening the crew of the "88," who evinced a certain apprehension by taking violent evasive action. Visual contact was lost, but skilful work by my operator, F.'O. A. C. Willmott, D.F.C., enabled us to follow by A.I. until the Ju 88 over-optimistically stopped weaving. This time, fire was opened from a much shorter range and one of the petrol tanks blew up in a sheet of flame, which we could not avoid flying through. Passage through the flame was instantaneous, and no undue heat or smell of frying was detected in the cockpit; but on emerging the other side I found myself blinded and unable to see any flying instruments. This was unfortunate, as we had pulled away steeply in trying to avoid the flames. I knew instinc- tively what the legendary man in the cloud "with nothing but SMITHS on the clock" must have felt like, though my operator's torch saved us before we became genuinely inverted. I had no idea how badly the aircraft was damaged, though the twitching of the rudder-bar at my feet showed that something was adrift in that direction. From what one reads it was customary on occasions such as this to "press on" back to base and make an impressive entree with a tattered aircraft at one's home airfield, but I was too worried, about what might happen next, to remember this; I therefore asked to land at the nearest strip in Normandy. This was accomplished with some difficulty, at the second shot, as the entire windscreen and Perspex cockpit canopy was charred black, which ruined the visibility and caused us to miss the first approach. In addition, both wings had been damaged by debris from the e/a, and a large panel had disappeared from the upper surface of the port one. I must admit, however—and I take off my hat to de Havilland's—that nothing in the behaviour of the aircraft after the incident suggested that the damage was as extensive as it proved to be. In fact, I can thoroughly recommend rudderless night-flying in Mosquitoes as a useful exercise for pupils at night-fighter O.T.U.s ! Southborough, Kent. M. M. DAVISON. Those Veterans THE article by A. Cdre. Wheeler, "Not unfair to Veterans"(February 8th) should receive the courtesy of a reply, though there is very little which requires an answer. The gist of my own article (December 21st) was that a mid-way course was being pursued in the exhibition of the veteran aircraft, which I deprecated, and that the commentaries were silly— to put it mildly. Now A. Cdre. Wheeler has kindly confirmed my suggestion regarding the policy and assured us that the commentaries are far more mild than at the Cleveland Air Races; as regards the latter, I only hope we may be spared the necessity for catering for the lowest intelligence to which the American commentators seem to pander. So the "proverbial cigarette smoke going (nearly) straight up" has to come into it! One of the dear old "string" legends ! In a constructive criticism of my article a correspondent (January 18th) mentioned, correctly, that the Dep. flew from Hendon to Brooklands in a 40-55 m.p.h. gale in 1913. This was not an everyday occurrence, but it was certainly not unique. I am no pioneer, but I do remember flying a Grahame-White "Box- kite" (an aircraft without cockpit or instruments, but fun to fly and acontemporaryoftheDep.), the length of an airfield backwards. At the time I assumed that it was due to a wind and have, in fact, used that and similar incidents in efforts to explain the mysteries of the terms "air speed" and "ground speed" to pupils. People should realize that the danger in those days occurred when aircraft were taxying—for then, due to their light loading, one had only to get slightly cross-wind for things to happen. It is interesting to note, from A. Cdre. Wheeler's article, that the veteran aircraft which could only have been grounded in a "cigarette" wind merely took a "poor view" of a Meteor's slipstream. I claim at least as much respect for the pioneer aircraft as does A. Cdre. Wheeler, and I have a deep regard for the late Richard Shuttleworth and the Trust, to whose excellent work this country owes a big debt. I am quite sure that, in veteran demonstrations, the air commodore has tried to avoid "any suggestion of the comic"; but it is my point that the mid-way policy encourages that effect—and at White Waltham in 1949, for example, it was certainly achieved. He should not think that the views I expressed were by any means mine alone; there and elsewhere, I mixed with spectators and heard opinions. In the gallant air commodore's last paragraph it seems that he- is extending his benevolence to veterans/human as well as veterans/aircraft, which is very decent of him. So to amuse hin perhaps, I should add that, in mitigation of my crime of "getting on," I have not only a first-hand knowledge of the old aircrai- but during my "quiet though still gently active old age," I have been in various "glass cases" and, within the last year, spent some- time in one at 40,000ft. Potters Bar, Middx. A. H. CURTIS.
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