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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0457.PDF
What may be termed the mechanical side of the simulator is shown in this photograph of the control loading frame. The slides supporting the pilots' seats are just visible at the top of the picture. and a revision of standard procedures and drills. The final six 2-hr periods are devoted almost entirely to flight problems set by the chief instructor from his "troubles" panel, and final checks for captain and first officer. In addition to this first course, bi-annual flight checks, each of which used to occupy some four hours of flying in the aircraft, now take six hours in the simulator. Experience has shown that without the use of a simulator approximately 21 flying hours are needed to convert a crew to a new four-engined aircraft, but with the aid of a simulator no more than eight hours, and on occasions as few as four, have proved to be enough. Model of a typical layout for a flight-simulator instructional building. Surrounding the simulator itself are the computer room, briefing room, chief instructor's office and entrance lobby. It is not proposed here to discuss costs in great detail, but the two Pan American curves on the opposite page, showing operating costs and annual savings, provide much of the information which may be required. Flight simulators are usually built for a ten-years life. Operational costs for the Redifon machine will be approxi- mately £30 per hour (as compared with £3°° for a Strato- cruiser). Thus, if a reduction of about 60 per cent in actual flying time devoted to crew training and checks is possible, B.O.A.C., with some 35 Stratocruiser crews, will effect a great saving. The cost of the complete training of one crew will be reduced by about a half. The simulator will also be hired out to other airlines, and it may pay for itself within the first two years. It is understood that P.A.A. were able to clear the cost of their B-377 simulator in about eighteen months. Regarding maintenance and utilization, in one 12-month period, the La Guardia simulator operated for 2,750 hours of training in 3,300 hours of total operating time (the difference being made up by continuous running between classes, demonstrations to airlines and visitors, and a few hours for maintenance and calibration work). In that period only five hours of training were cancelled due to breakdowns. Two maintenance engineers are required to work in shifts. The bulk of their work comprises inspection, cleaning, testing and minor adjustment, most of which can be accom- plished during normal operation—of 12 to 16 hours daily. In calculating costs, no account has been taken of the salvage value of components of a superseded simulator. INFALLIBLE GLIDER AN engineer (who in his youth had been a "bug-hunter") stoodon 8 mountain crest in Malaya, prospecting for a road. Below him was a little valley, where grew tree-ferns like palms and yellow rhododendrons. His attention was fastened on what seemed to be an unfamiliar butterfly down in the valley; it was not its colouring that was striking but its curious, lilting flight. As he watched he saw that it was meandering up the hillside and would cross the ridge near by. He ran to get a closer view; and as it passed twenty feet overhead, he threw his hat ai it. By great good luck he brought it down and discovered it was not a butterfly at all, but an extraordinary gliding seed. Many seeds are great aeronauts. They balloon, parachute, rocket and auto-rotate; but only this one actually glides. The specimen caught by the engineer on the mountain at an altitude of six thousand feet was still rising. Being a glider of perfect performance, at such an altitude it might well have covered hundreds of miles. These seeds have, in fact, been seen flying over ships six hundred miles from land. Its botanical name is Macrozanonia Macrocarpa. It is a kind of climbing gourd that grows in the jungles of the Malayan Archipelago and is about as large as a football. Each seed, very flattened and approximately the size of a shilling, is embedded at the centre of a diaphanous filament of half-moon shape; these filaments lie within axial planes, like the pips of an orange. When the fruit decays it falls apart and the hot sun dries the filaments, which then float away on the breeze. Each filament is semi-transparent and has a silky sheen, which glimmers silver and gold in the sunlight. Its wing-thickness is delicately graded so that the margins, including that of the leading edge, are flexible. About six inches in span, it is of the tailless or pterodactyl type. The flexible wing-tips act as auto- matic stabilizers. In performance this glider is infallible. Nothing one can do prevents it from automatically resuming its flying attitude. Its progress is as follows : a nose-dive flattening out into a gentle glide; then a climb to a stall (a tail-slide is prevented by the flexible trailing-edges); the nose dips and the process repeats itself. It can be released from the hand head-first, tail-first, or with wing-tips pointing vertically down—in fact, released anyhow— and immediately it becomes stable and goes sedately on its way. To-day, the gliding flight of birds is commonly understood, but not long ago it was believed to be by virtue of some mysterious power; so the early inventors of flying machines concentrated on the principles of wing-flapping. Had Leonardo da Vinci been able to handle and study one of these gliding seeds man's conquest of the air might have come sooner. JULIAN ALLEN. [A specimen of this remarkable fruit and its seeds—now, we are informed, re-classified as Alsomitra Macrocarpa— is displayed in No. 3 Museum at JjCew Gardens.—ED.] "General arrangement drawing" of the seed and (below) the gourd. 53/4in
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