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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 2271.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 August 1952 207 PASSING OF THE TIGER . . . and has, moreover, come safely through the mill, so that he feels that it would be anti-social and ungrateful not to record his appreciation of the many pleasant hours spent at the controls of the Tiger Moth, mostly playing truant. Time has blunted the edges of his growing pains, so that he remembers now most vividly those occasions when he was able to escape from the discipline of routine exercises, and indulge his carefree fancy. The manoeuvres which accompanied these relapses may not have won the approval of the canons; but anyone who has flown the Tiger for any length of time must agree that it was the complete antithesis of the book of rules. In fact, it was impossible to make friends with it at all, unless one realized that it had to be flown in its own special way. The pundits who insisted always on flying the Tiger with a view to applying the practice to larger and faster aircraft were making an awkward and stubborn mule out of a sweet and willing mount. But when one treated the Tiger as an aircraft in its own right, and not as a half-scale try-out, one found that a friend had been made, one who could be trusted never to turn vicious in adverse weather conditions. One always felt safe in a Tiger Moth, even in the most ham-fisted training days. If, sometimes, the hands of those who flew the Tiger were bitten, their wounds were just reprisal for maltreatment. However, whatever the viewpoint, the time will soon be here when it will matter no longer. In the next decade, the sight and sound of a Tiger purring its way across the sky is going to become increasingly rare. There is little doubt that the retirement of the famous type will be a long and honourable one, and that it will eventually become one of the most prized vintage aircraft— though perhaps a few will find their way into a museum of instru ments of mediaeval torture. M. N. M. THREE NEW BOOKS "Physical Aspects of Air Photography" by G. C. Brook. Long mans, Green and Co., Ltd., 6 and 7, Clifford Street, London, W.i. Price 565. M ANY are the text books dealing with the photogrammetric or mapping side of aerial survey, but few of them discuss in detail the purely photographic and optical problems. The present volume by G. C. Brook, who is at the R.A.E., Farnborough, deals almost exclusively with the physical problems which have to be overcome to obtain the clearest and sharpest photographs which any particular set of conditions will allow. The higher the resolution obtained in air photographs, the smaller the scale will be at which they will be satisfactory to the mapmaker, interpreter, geologist or whoever has to extract infor mation from them. The smaller the scale required, the greater the area covered for a given amount of flying—in other words, good photography cheapens air survey. Tnis excellent book shows the way. "The Stories of Flying Officer 'X'," by H. E. Bates. Jonathan Cape, 30 Bedford Square, London, W.C.i. Price 10s. 6d. "CJOME books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some >3 few to be chewed and digested," wrote Francis Bacon. Reviewers, unfortunately, have to chew and digest each and every book, even when, as in this case, it should, like fine brandy, be sipped and enjoyed at leisure. As a result one sees faults that are not really important—too many of Mr. Bates' aircrew have lost parents or children by bombing, too many of them suffer too long, adrift in rubber dinghies, and so on. It is only after one has laid the book aside, and read other "realistic" novels of the Royal Air Force, full of salacious bookstall appeal, that the true ability of H. E. Bates becomes apparent. His characters are decent, ordinary people, doing the extraordinary things that ordinary people do when swept from their peaceable home life into the maelstrom of war. Some, like bomber captain Eddington-Green, become great pilots, although "he had no medals." Others reveal an inner greatness and tenderness, like the little W.A.A.F. telephonist who watched every crew but her hus band's return from a bombing raid, and could still smile and call it a wonderful show. There is not a word wasted in this whole collection of 18 short stories, many of which were published during the war as The Greatest People in the World and How Sleep the Brave, by Flying Officer "X". Bates introduces his characters in six or seven lines and the reader knows all about them, because they are the sort of people we all knew, great people, recalled in a book that is in every way worthy of them. "Our Fighting Jets," by Major C. B. Colby, C.A.P. Coward- McCann, Inc., New York, U.S.A. No price quoted. AMERICA is not yet recognition-minded. Her people are fortunate in never having seen an enemy aircraft over their own country, and the new U.S. Ground Observer Corps is having to struggle along with a minimum of equipment and support from either the Government or people as a whole. Maj. Colby has done his best to produce a book that will give Americans both a pride in their country's warplanes and an interest in aircraft recognition. The result is probably the best effort of its kind on the other side of the Atlantic, but can only make members of our own Royal Observer Corps realize how lucky they are. Altogether, 22 U.S. jets are described and illustrated. In each case, the entire right-hand page is devoted to one photograph, and these are, oh the whole, very good, especially the new pictures of a Cutlass, F-86D Sabre and XF-88 Voodoo. The text, although a little Technicoloured, is probably ideal for Major Colby's potential readership; but he seems to have got his "X" and "XF" designations a trifle confused. DECORATIVE LINE-UP: These Be// Model 47 heli copters—claimed to be probably the largest num ber of completed rotary- wing craft to be assembled in one place—await deli very at the company's Saginaw, Texas, works. Assembled and flight-tested at the makers' new plant at Hurst, Texas, the aircraft are ferried to Saginaw for crating and shipping. The usual power-plant of the Modrl 47 is a 17* h.*\ Franklin 6V4-178-B.32 mounted vertically, or a 200 h.p. Franklin 6B4-200- C.32 flat six. ^^^'-^^^^^ '* &.-VAPVB* '..1 \— "~~~ -"-"""'' %0k 1jUtVs mz>%\ ";.•• ^-^^^ ^~-~^~~~*^ '4rV . *;'* *.' 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