FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0254.PDF
118 FLIGHT General arrangement of the Supermarine bomber to Specification 8.12/36. This was the last aircraft designed by R. J. Mitchell and promised to be highly successful. The fuselages of the prototypes were destroyed by enemy bombing and work was abandoned. IN MEMORY OF R. J. MITCHELL must always remain an inspiration. The facts are tragically simple. In . 1933 R. J. was taken ill and underwent an operation which it after wards became evident was only partially successful. Although he apparently completely recovered, he became increasingly subject to bouts of pain during the next three years, and in March 1937 a further operation was carried out. It was then found that the disease had progressed to the extent of being incurable, and he was given three months to live. He was told so by his surgeon, and he returned home. He proceeded to put his private affairs in order and made wise provision for his wife and son down to the smallest detail. In April he was flown to Vienna to the clinic of Professor Freund, but the disease had pro gressed too far, and he returned home at the end of May. Three weeks later he died at his home, having been unconscious for several days. He was only forty-two years of age, and his brain was in its prime. It was a tragic loss to his country, his firm and his friends." Summing-up, the lecturer said that, in his opinion, Mitchell would have foreseen in good time all the design-problems of today, and would have thought out solutions to them; and with his skill and dogged determination it was possible that he would have greatly exceeded the present rate of progress. Mr. Smith concluded: "I should be more than happy if I have succeeded in awakening the ambition of even a few of the younger members of my audience to try to emulate R, J. Mitchell. There is no doubt that, in order to carry on the great work which he started, more and more qualified technicians with his kind of drive and genius will be required, not only in the design field but also in those of mathematics, physics, engineering and electronics. I am quite certain that no better memorial to the memory of R. J. Mitchell could exist than the plentiful and continued flow of technically qualified men into die industry which he served so well." , After the delivery of the lecture the president of the R.Ae.S., Sir William Farren, added tributes of his own and also invited one or two of the many present who had known R. J. Mitchell as a personal friend to add their reminiscences. Air Marshal Sir John Boothman and Air Marshal Sir Ralph Sorley gave personal recollections and spoke respectively of Schneider associations and the decision to equip the Spitfire with eight guns. Major Bulman, recently returned from Hong Kong, proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer. After the meeting a memorial dinner was given at Southamp ton University by Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd. There were toasts by the company's managing director, Mr. George Edwards (who took the chair), to the memory of R. J. Mitchell, and to the guests by Mr. A. N. Clifton, Supermarine assistant chief designer; the replies were by Air Vice-Marshal R. L. R. Atcherley and Sir John Buchanan. R. J. Mitchell's son, Dr. Gordon Mitchell, spoke in warm appreciation of Mr. Smith's generous tributes, adding the view that he—the lecturer—had been unduly modest over his own work as successor to "R. J." A NEW FRENCH FIGHTER Details of the SFECMAS 1402 Gerfaut Transonic Delta ON February 6th and March 20th last year we published photographs of the Arsenal 1.301 delta-wing glider, which was used to provide experimental data on a series of high-speed wings and control systems. Air-launched from a Dakota or Languedoc, this glider employed wings of very low thickness/chord ratio and a variety of tail configurations. It was an open secret that the work was intended to assist the design of a small, transonic fighter. This fighter has now been completed by the private firm SFECMAS—successors to Arsenal—and is a machine of absorbing interest. Styled SFECMAS 1402 Gerfaut, it is the first of several deltas now being developed by the French company. Unlike M. Jean Galtier's earlier Arsenal fighters, the 1402 is remarkably small and bears a faint resemblance to the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite of 1947. Cruising over the Etang de berre, the SPEC/HAS 1402 is flying at high- angle of attack, with the tailplane at full negative incidence. Roth anti- spin and braking parachutes are fitted in fairings in the lower fin. Another picture is on page 120. The wing has a thickness/chord ratio of less than six per cent. The trailing edge is straight and the sweep on the leading edge nearly 60 deg. Unconventional constructional methods have been employed for this wing, and undoubtedly much of the structure is of high-tensile steel. Each trailing edge carries a flap and aileron, both of which are of minute dimensions owing to the small span. Lack of space within the wing has pushed the control linkage outside, on upper and lower surfaces. No leading-edge flaps or slats are fitted and, since the leading edge is very sharp, low-speed behaviour at high angles of attack cannot be exemplary. The wing houses no fuel or equipment. The stubby fuselage contains a SNECMA Atar turbojet carried on the two centre-section spar bridge-pieces and fed from a straight-through duct. The present 1402 has an Atar 101C of 6,200 lb static thrust, but later aircraft are to have more powerful Atars and, possibly, other engines. Above the engine and duct is a superstructure housing a full-size cockpit and the tankage. The cockpit is equipped with an ejection seat and a "clamshell" canopy, and the windscreen is sharply raked, with a vee front. The undercarriage, of Messier design and manufacture, em ploys high-pressure tyres and disc brakes. The nose unit retracts backwards, and the shape of the door shows that the wheel turns to lie flat in the fuselage. The main wheels are also housed in the fuselage, although the track is commendably large—about half the span. Conventional powered ailerons are fitted, and it is believed that their profile is stabilized with a plastic lightweight filling. The large fin makes up for the short tail moment-arm in provid ing adequate damping, and the tiny delta tailplane is a one- piere all-moving surface. The tail is, in fact, similar to that of the iSoulton Paul P. 120. Air brakes are fitted on each side of the jet-pipe, and their leading edges are curved to fit snugly against the rear fuselage when open. The present 1402 was first flown on January 15th at Istres, near Marseilles—roughly six months behind schedule. The pilot was M. Turcat who, incidentally, was given a brief course on deltas in an Avro 707C at Boscombe Down last autumn. The first 1402 is purely experimental, but later variants—which may exhibit some unusual features—are to be fighters, with full inter- cepter equipment and rocket armament. SFECMAS 1402 Data: One SNECMA Atar 101C, of 6,200 lb thrust. Span, 21ft 4in; length, 32ft 6in; height, 13ft 8in; gross wing area, 205 sq ft; all-up weight, under 8,000 lb; initial climb, approximately 25,000 ft/min.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
