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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0930.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 . Vol. LIX. FRIDAY, 18 MAY 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 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Ttligrams, lliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars +412 (3 lines) Deansgate 3595 (2 lines). GLASGOW, C.2 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams, lliffe, 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 ISSU Salute to the Sunderland U.K. Airways System Explained - Early Gliding Days - No. 7 Squadron For Training the Reserves ... McCulloch MC-4 - Evolution of the Guided Missile E: 580 586 587 589 594 596 598 Fighter Future THE fighter aircraft has one primary duty: to kill. Others come its way from time totime, according to the exigencies of the moment, but in essence the fighter is a killerfirst and last. All the performance essentials wedded to the fighter concept—speed, rate of climb, high-altitude ability and manoeuvrability—are but means to an end. It can therefore be stated unequivocally th^t, no matter how aerodynamically exquisite and brilliant a performer a fighter may be, if it is ineffective as a killer it is waste. When assessing the ability of a fighter it is common for attention to be focused on the aerodynamic refinement and the power installation of the design. By comparison, little attention is normally devoted to the armament—understandably, perhaps, for whereas gun design has progressed only slowly during the past twenty years, aerodynamic design has advanced astoundingly, and continues to do so. It is, however, ultimately and solely by means of its armament that the fighter can fulfil its purpose. There is a tendency at the present time to discount the gun and to welcome the air-to- air rocket missile. Certainly, such armament will find a place in the modern air war: the Americans have been, and are, devoting a great deal of attention to it, but the host of problems which this form of armament brings in its train are by no means easy of solution. Stowage is just one of these problems: we cannot bring ourselves to believe that the fighters now being developed will have so much in hand over their bomber contemporaries that they will be able to afford the external stowage of air-to-air missiles. The ratios of power/ weight and power/frontal area of the turbojet have changed the previous standard of fighter and bomber relationship, and the designer of fighter aircraft today has a much tougher problem than his colleague who designs bombers. Unfortunately, air-to-air rockets of practicable form for normal use as a fighter's primary armament are not readily stowable internally because of their size, but, contrarily, need to be posirioned in the region of the aircraft e.g. because of their weight. Solutions to these and kindred problems will, of course, be found, ultimately. But, in the meantime, how are our fighters to kill ? The closeness of performance now possible between the fighter and the bomber makes it essential that the fighter delivers a mortal strike at the first attempt: one pass and—finish. This postulates the necessity for enormous hitting power—in fact, a modern equivalent of the great advance shown by the eight-gun Hurricane and Spitfire over the contemporary armament standards of the late 'thirties. Unfortunately, the classical mechanical design of the gun is—and has been for a long time—severely limited in development. The point has now been reached where the difficulty and cost of achieving even a relatively small advance over existing standards is exorbitant—is, in fact, quite disproportionate to the results gained. It is therefore apparent that the only way to achieve any considerable progress is to depart from the classical gun design; to depart, that is, from the classical limitations. Whittle did it with the gas turbine: can it not be done with the gun? What of the Swift? 0 sooner were the above thoughts on paper than the announcement was made of the adoption by the R.A.F. of the Vickers-Supermarine Swift (see page 582). Here is excellent news indeed; but there is no reassurance that the armament of production Swifts will match the quality of the airframe. The Type 535, from which the Swift is being developed, has four wing-mounted 20 mm British-Hispano guns—war-time arma- ment of Spitfires, Hurricanes, Tempests and Typhoons; but in the production version, say the makers, the guns might be "enclosed in the fuselage," with, it may be supposed, benefit to accuracy and ease of feeding. But of what type the guns are to be is not yet disclosed. Meantime, the Russian-built Mig-I5s in Korea continue to amass experience with weapons reported to be of 30 mm or even larger calibre. Like ourselves, the Russians have learned much from advanced types of gun developed for the Luftwaffe, notably the high-velocity Rheinmetall Mk 103 (muzzle velocity 2,7ooft/sec).
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