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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0067.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2346 Vol. 65. FRIDAY, 8 JANUARY 1954 EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT EDITOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. ART EDITOR JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1. 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. Telegrams, lliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines). Deansgate 3595 (2 lines). GLASGOW, C2. 26b Renfield Street. Telegrams, lliffe, Glasgow. Telephone, Central 1265 (2 lines). 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. S16. IN THIS ISSUE: The New Year Honours 32 Production at Belfast - 33 Instrumentation by Re flection 35 First Spot your Fish - - 37 Producing those Airline Pilots 39 For Instrument T'ckets - 42 Rockets on the Mojave - 44 Hunting-Clan - - - - 45 Discussing Production - 46 The Cooling of Rocket Motors 54 In the Cockpit I F it were possible to find an aeronautical engineer without any knowledge of, or preconceived ideas about, controls, what sort of pedals, levers, wheels or other devices would he now put in the cockpit of a modern aircraft for the pilot to operate? It may be that they would not differ greatly from those employed today, the man and the three planes of control being the same as always; but, in any case, would they be of the same size and shape? In the earliest days of flying many variations were tried. The action and effect of wing-warping was, from the pilot's point of view, much the same as that of aileron operation. Early, the Wrights used two fore-and-aft sticks, both hands being full in every sense. The right hand operated the "elevation rudder" in the natural sense. Among several other systems devised and patented by the Wrights was the familiar joystick for the use of which—unlike others—the British Government paid a consider able sum during the first war. Bleriot used a very similar instinctive system and the wheel associated with his "cloche" universal-joint mounting was in fact little more than a decoration on the top of the stick. Curtiss and Breguet were early wheel men, but the former operated his rudder by a shoulder control or yoke, the pilot "naturally" leaning away from the low wing and so righting the machine. Breguet's wheel was, in effect, a rudder control mounted on a joystick. Early rudder pedals did not always operate in the same sense as those of today. The first wheel controls similar in type and action to the kind in use today were probably to be found on an early tandem dual Deperdussin. So much for the early days. But when flying started to become a real art and test pilots were employed to improve the breed, the feel of controls became appreciated, speed ranges increased rapidly and, in no time it seemed, we were involved in stick-forces per g and other complications. Convention is now firmly dug in so far as cockpit controls are concerned, and the advent of power-operated controls, flying tails and artificial feel, all of which bring radical changes in control requirements, have made little impression. Admittedly two buttons on tie stick or wheel are used for up-and-down tail trim in place of elevator control on several high-speed moving-tailplane aircraft today. It is also customary to fly large aircraft on the autopilot trimmers when changes in direction and height are required. Readers may recall, incidentally, that the largest roadable vehicle shown to the Queen at the R.A.F. Royal Review, namely, a thirty-ton, 32 m.p.h. Le Tourneau scraper, has no steering wheel but is directed solely by a small electric switch moving transversely in the natural sense. The driver told us that he quickly got used to manoeuvring his massive vehicle without a steering wheel. We feel there is now much to be said for reconsideration of the size, positioning, and shape of cockpit controls in order to find out whether improvements can be made for future high-speed aircraft—particularly the larger ones. It may be a sign that at least one Vulcan bomber is, according to reports, flown with the aid of a stick of fighter type and dimensions. With power operation and artificial or no feel, is it good practice to carry extra weight, to encumber the pilots, and to obscure their instruments with control wheels of a type and size directly descended from the bulky affairs required on early flying- boats and bombers? Stick forces and sensitivity can be, and in some cases already are, adjustable in the cockpit according to conditions. Today we fly by brain, with very little brawn. Would not controls somewhere midway in size between those of the current fighter and the trimmers of a typical autopilot serve adequately and be accept able to aircrew? Need a stick be more than 6in long? Should it be used in conjunction with normal rudder pedals? Or might not yaw control come from twist-grip action? The fact that more and more auxiliary controls and switches are being mounted on the stick or wheel should not, we think, be allowed to influence designers to accept over size control components to accommodate them. At least let us not be too convention-bound or allow the existence of standard components, excellent as they are for most current and some future machines, to prevent our thinking ahead in keeping with the new forms of control surface and operation, and the changing conditions of flight.
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